Don't Look
by gabriel blessing
Summary: 'No no no no no no'. 'Can't run'. 'Always watches, no eyes'. 'Leave me alone'. 'Don't look... or it takes you'. 'Help me.' Shinji already knew all that. He knew it all too well. But there was never anyone there to help. Misato intends to change that. If she can.
1. Chapter 1

Don't Look

_Author's Notes: So here I was, all going about In Flight 35 (which is over halfway done, for those who are curious) and then I happened to glance at the calender. Much to my surprise, it appeared Halloween is nearly upon us all. I looked back at my previous stories with a touch of nostalgia, and realized that it was nearly a year to the day that I had concluded 'Those Who Love Monsters'._

_It was while I was reminiscing, that I realized I felt the urge to publish something simple. Not some huge epic, or drawn out involved and overly complicated crossover. Just something fast, vicious, brutal, and something chilling._

_Well, I was already playing with a few stories in my head idly, and it just seemed appropriate to go ahead and put one down, just for the season's sake._

_I plan on having this whole story finished by the 31. It won't be particularly long or complicated. It's just something to sit down and enjoy, something that will hopefully give you a chill while you read it. After all, horror is my favorite genre._

_And yes, for those of you who are curious, this is actually a crossover. If you already can tell what it is with, then you are a horror affiendo yourself. If you can't, well, you can either go google it and spoil the surprise, or you can just read on and let the surprise come to you._

_Later folks. Look for the next chapter fast._

_Gabriel Blessing_

*Story Start

Misato wasn't certain what to expect when she had been sent to retrieve the Third Child. Well, that wasn't exactly true. It might be said that she actually had a surplus of expectations.

After all, even if Misato hadn't officially been with NERV for too long, she had already had some contact with both the First and Second Child. She hadn't noticed any particular defining characteristics for pilots with just that much exposure, so so far she was definitely leaning towards 'weird' as one of her foremost expectations. Considering the wide variety between the other two Children, this newcomer would probably rank somewhere between 'emotionless statue' and 'overbearing prima dona'.

Yeah, that didn't exactly narrow it down for her too much.

Then again, the new Child was the commander's son. Maybe she should be expecting more along the lines of mini-manipulative glasses wearing megalomaniac?

Nah. The cross Misato wore was a symbol of her faith, and there was just no way that a kind or loving god would allow two people like Gendo to exist. Not in close proximity anyway.

Well, there was another factor that could influence her expectations, one which was rather pressing, after all.

The fact that a giant twenty story engine of alien destruction was currently in the middle of making a Godzilla impression definitely tended to flavor the situation.

"Shit," Misato swore loudly, desperately twisting the steering wheel of her car as she tried to dodge falling rubble as the enormous thing with glowing eyes casually smashed a VTOL, sending the wreckage in her direction. "Is it doing this on purpose?" she demanded, wondering if the Angel really was that malevolent as to aim for one small car while it was nonchalantly destroying millions of yen worth of UN property. "I still have twenty payments on this thing!"

And that was when Misato got to have her first meeting with Shinji Ikari.

The Third Child was young looking, but then, he was only fourteen so that wasn't a surprise. He was sitting calmly, absolutely still, with his slightly long shaggy brown hair falling down over his eyes as he kept his head ducked down until his chin nearly rested on his chest. Despite the raucous and explosions, despite the fact that the Angel was literally no more than four city blocks away and closing quickly, the boy made no move to get up, no effort to look around.

"Is he sleeping?" Misato demanded, incredulous at the sight before her as she watched the kid show more stone cold balls in the face of impending death than she would expect from a man three times his age.

Yeah, looks like this was going to be another weird one, she decided to herself.

With the skills she had gained from playing far too many Grand Theft Auto games in her youth, the NERV employee spun the steering wheel of her car, causing the blue four door to spin, skidding to a stop directly in front of the still child. Leaning over, she pushed the passenger side door open.

"Hey! Wake up!" she began, intending to rouse the poor child so that they could escape certain doom in a timely fashion, only to find out that there was no need for her alarm clock impression. The moment the car had appeared before him the Third Child stood, rushing towards the relative safety of her vehicle with a fervor that indicated that yes, he actually had been aware of just how much danger he was in, and no, he most certainly did not want to be here anymore.

"Can we go now?" the Third Child asked, his voice touched with just a twinge of urgency and fear as he slammed the door behind him. Misato blinked, not quite sure what to make of the child's unusual reactions.

Maybe he was a little weird, she decided, but not as much as she had suspected. Sure, he had been making a credible statue impression, but then again the option was running away screaming, an act which might draw attention to himself and could also make it harder for her to have found him. In retrospect the Third Child might not have been too far off with his reactions after all.

However, it was while Misato was preparing to slam her car into reverse so she could get both of them the hell out of there that she saw him.

Not Shinji. The other man.

She nearly missed the other. He was standing just as still as Shinji had been, several dozen yards off. He was mostly concealed at the lip of an alley, most of the corner of a building covering him and allowing only a small fraction of his profile to be visible, a set of trash cans concealing most of his lower body, but even with only a quarter of him visible at most Misato's trained eye managed to catch sight of him.

For some reason, Misato felt a chill go down her spine. For the life of her she couldn't figure out why.

The other man was tall and slight of frame, and rather well dressed. He wore a dark suit over a white shirt, the lapels stretching outward across his slim chest. His arms hung flat at his side, his hands concealed by the garbage cans he was standing behind. Much like the Third Child this other fellow was standing still, absolutely motionless even as the world around him descended into hell.

Maybe it was a trick of the light, a glare caused by the explosions in the distance, or maybe it was just the distance, but Misato found that she couldn't make out any of the man's features. He was white, a paleness which combined with his height led Misato to believe that the newcomer was Caucasian, but beyond that Misato just couldn't determine any of his other facial features.

However, when a flaming piece of rubble impacted nearby the other man, Misato swore. What was it with people not having the common sense to flee from certain death?

"Shit," Misato swore again. "Who is that and why is he not evacuated yet?" she demanded of the world around her, not expecting a response. That would be too fair, after all, and life just wasn't fair. "Looks like we're going to have company on this drive, kiddo," she informed the boy she had been sent to pick up, already preparing to race even closer to death so she could get this other idiot to safety.

That was her plan, but instead Misato nearly jumped out of her skin and ran into a wall when she felt a hand on her leg. Incredulously, she glanced down to find that the unassuming boy was the owner of the limb. For a moment, Misato honestly believed that the kid was trying to put the moves on her, right here and now, before she realized that rather than sneaking a grope the Third Child was just clutching the hem of her skirt. Clutching so hard that his knuckles had turned white.

"Please," the Third Child entreated her, and Misato glanced up to try and read the boy's expression to only be met with a bowed head. "Please, we need to go."

There was something in his voice which relieved Misato, actually. The kid was afraid. That was smart. This situation deserved fear, in her humble and forthright opinion. It made Misato relax a little, finally formulating her opinion that why the Third Child was a little weird, it was the kind of weird she could deal with.

"Sorry, kiddo," Misato gave him a reassuring smile. "But we can't just leave him…" she trailed off as she glanced back to confirm the other man's presence, only to discover that he was gone, vanished as completely as if he had never existed. "Wait, where did he go?" she asked the world in general, once more not expecting a response, and once more getting a surprise as one was supplied.

"Please," Shinji repeated, and Misato noticed with alarm that his grip on the hem of her skirt had grown stronger, strong enough that his hand was starting to shake slightly. "We have to go now."

Misato hesitated, one more looking towards where the other man had been, and still finding that he was gone without a trace. It didn't sit right with her, to just leave someone out here to die, but if he was gone then the time it would take to find him was time that they didn't have. She needed to get the Third Child back to NERV, and fast, before they died out here or the Angel got much further.

"You're right, kiddo," Misato finally gave in, shifting the car into gear and starting the return to NERV with the roar of tires scarring asphalt. She gave one last look into the rearview mirror, but there was no one behind her.

Still, it wasn't until they had been driving in relative silence, nothing but the explosions in the background, for nearly five minutes before the Third Child relaxed his grip on her clothing. Misato was pleased, noticing the way the boy seemed to relax as they sped away from the warzone. Definitely a smart kid, she decided.

"Well," Misato began, not having much trouble forcing a cheerful tone. "I guess it's time for introductions. Misato Katsuragi, at your service! Feel free to call me Misato." She gave the boy a playful leer, knowing full well the photo she had sent to tease him with before.

"Shinji Ikari," the Third Child introduced himself back, his voice cautious but polite. It sounded to Misato like the kid wasn't used to dealing with people as cheerful as she was, but was still willing to make the effort of returning the favor.

Still, there was one thing that Misato noticed, something which struck her as a bit odd.

The entire time she had been picking the boy up, not once had he lifted his gaze from the floor, even when they were introducing themselves.

Yeah, just a little weird, Misato decided.

*Scene Break*

"Man," Misato sighed happily, shamelessly stripping off the upper layer of the biohazard suit to reveal her somewhat skimpy tank top beneath it. "Air-conditioning is the greatest invention of man, ever! Humanity's true victory over nature!"

"Hmmm," Ritsuko Akagi, Misato's oldest friend, former roommate, and current coworker hummed in amusement at her friend's shamelessness. "It's nice to know that all my hard work to preserve humanity in the face of insurmountable odds is being upstaged by central air."

"Don't worry," Misato reassured the bottle blond airily. "Someday if you try hard, you might make something half as awesome as this!"

Ritsuko snorted, before turning her attention outside of the cab of the construction truck they were currently resting in to take in the sight of the shattered and ruined form of the Third Angel.

"Still," the doctor began, changing the subject. "It was surprising that Shinji-kun managed to do such a good job." It might have been a bit messy at first, but midway through the battle the berserker rage that had settled on the Third Pilot had been enough to see them through this first encounter. It had been a fluke, a result of the instability of the Evangelion unit, but times like this a little bit of luck was probably due their way. "What do you think about the Third Child?"

Ritsuko had asked the question casually, expecting something irreverent from her longtime friend, maybe a bit of gossip that the other woman had managed to pick up in the brief time longer that she had known the Commander's son. When no response was immediate, the blonde glanced over, surprised to note a slightly concerned expression on her friend's face.

"Shinji-kun, eh?" Misato, muttered finally, putting her arms behind her head and stretching in a way which would have caused a car accident if she had done it near an intersection. Ritsuko generally wasn't the type for jealousy, but even she felt a bit of annoyance at her friend's very developed figure. "That was a harsh scene earlier," Misato continued, sounding like she was musing about something to herself. "With his dad, and all."

"I'll say," Ritsuko found herself agreeing, thinking back to the dramatic confrontation ten years in the making. "Poor Shinji-kun wasn't even able to look at his father."

"And then after that, the battle too," Misato added, pursing her lips as she made the vague statement. Ritsuko had known Misato long enough to know when she was being led. It was something Misato liked to do whenever she wanted a second opinion about something, but didn't want to give the person she was asking anything to color their opinion.

"Yes, that was quite intense," Ritsuko agreed, glancing away from her clipboard as she studied Misato, trying to figure out where she was going with this. "The Third Child must have been under a lot of stress. Then again, it would be natural," Ritsuko tried to recall the scene in more detail. "He looked like he was so frightened he couldn't even look at the Angel."

"Yeah," Misato seemed to have gotten what she wanted from her longtime friend, her lips still pursed as her tone perked up a bit. "He did seem scared. But not as scared as before."

Ritsuko raised an eyebrow at the statement, not quite sure what 'before' the Chief of Operations was talking about.

"The doctors say that Shinji should be waking up soon," Misato announced, finally coming out of her stretch and promptly beginning to suit herself up. "I think he should have a friendly face there waiting for him!"

"Oh?" Ritsuko cocked an eyebrow at Misato, wondering just what was up with the other woman. "Sure you aren't just going there to try and get out of the paperwork?" she pointed out dryly, and Misato gave a sheepish grin.

"No," she denied immediately, trying to put on a serious expression, before she broke and returned to sheepish. "Well, not entirely anyway."

*Scene Break*

There was definitely something odd about Shinji Ikari, Misato decided. The kid seemed smart, reasonable, and was able to keep a cool head on pressure. That much she was thankful for. However, for some reason, there was just something off about him.

Misato knew she wasn't the best judge of character sometimes, and especially in a situation like this. Misato was not by any definition of the word 'normal'. Her childhood especially was about as far away from normal as you could get. She had seen her old man die, been wounded in the explosion which had nearly caused the world to end, and seen with her own eyes the beasts which were the harbingers of the end times arrive. She had spent years afterwards as a mute, unable to speak, unable to even bring herself to try.

And it was because of this, because Misato knew in her heart that she was damaged in some way, damage that had mostly healed and that she could deal with, but that she still bore the scars of her past literally and figuratively, it was because of all that Misato felt she had a pretty good eye for finding other damaged goods.

And regardless of how young and innocent Shinji Ikari should be, right now her wounded bird radar was starting to ping worryingly.

She had taken the time to change back into her dress and jacket before she made it to the hospital where the Third Child was being housed. With her beret perched jauntily on her head, she felt that she looked just casual enough to set Shinji at ease. From her own experience, she knew it was easier to talk about certain things when the environment was relaxed, that interrogation would just cause you to lock up even further. If she was going to set this nagging unease aside, she needed Shinji to be able to answer her questions, to prove that she was just imagining things.

However, it was when she was turning away from the reception desk, tucking away her id stating that she did indeed have the clearance to know the location of the Third Child, that she saw the man again.

The other man. He was across the long hallway from where Misato was standing, again, nearly concealed by his environment. Only his shoulder and a portion of his face was visible from the corner of the hallway, and just like before with the garbage cans this time a stretcher was concealing his lower half. The glare of the florescent light of the hospital was harsh, and his too pale skin seemed to catch the illumination much brighter than the other reflective surfaces around him. His suit seemed to have the opposite effect, too dark to be natural in this amount of illumination.

And, to Misato's growing alarm, he was also standing nearly outside of the door which contained Shinji.

"You!" Misato called out, addressing the strange man again, her voice unconsciously sharp as she tried to get the other man to react. She realized that she might be being too aggressive, and tried to modulate her tone. After all, maybe this man actually had a reason to be here. Maybe he had been injured in the battle too, and was simply about to be released from his treatment and had just happened to have been near the Third Child once more.

Maybe, but when that strange shiver went down Misato's spine once again, something which wasn't quite intuition and yet still wasn't precisely fear, Misato sincerely doubted any of those perfectly logical explanations.

"Hey," Misato called again, her voice more in control but still firm. She ignored the receptionist behind her as they tried to get her to keep her voice down. Instead, she began making her way to the other man, her pace fast and firm. "Excuse me, but may I ask what you are doing here?"

Misato intended to get answers from the man, even if she had to use a certain degree of administrative and/or physical force to do so, but she was interrupted from her confrontation as one of the doors to a room before her opened up, releasing a doctor as they finished whatever procedure they had been up to in the room. Misato stifled a curse, dodging past the surprised professional and opened her mouth to continue her interrogation, but froze the moment she was clear.

The other man was gone. Just like before, between one moment and the next, there was no sign of the stranger.

Misato broke into a slow jog, intending to try and get to the corner as quickly as possible so she could try and figure out which way the now definitely suspicious man had gone, but when she passed by Shinji's door she took a second to glance in and froze yet again.

He wasn't supposed to be awake yet. The doctors had assured her he had been sedated enough to last at least another three hours.

Nonetheless, Shinji Ikari was awake. He was sitting up in his bed, back straight and locked, hands folded in his lap, and no trace of motion present on him.

And, Misato once more noted, his head was firmly in a bowed position, his shaggy hair falling down his forehead to conceal his eyes from view.

"Shinji-kun," Misato began, not sure why the scene before her was so unnerving, but feeling that there was definitely something wrong here. She realized that her delay was only giving the other man time to make good his escape, and was briefly torn between leaving Shinji behind so she could continue the pursuit or staying here to try and figure out what was wrong with the young pilot.

In the end, Misato decided that Shinji was more important. That didn't stop her from intending to make a call to Section Two as soon as possible though.

"Well good morning," Misato plastered a cheerful expression, keeping her tone lighthearted deliberately. "The sleeping hero awakens!"

Considering how still the Third Child was, Misato wasn't actually expecting a reaction. She blinked in surprise when despite his stillness the young man answered back, his tone somewhat shy. "Good morning, Katsuragi-san."

"Now, now," Misato playfully scolded the boy. "I thought I told you just Misato was fine!"

"Ah," Shinji began, his tone slightly embarrassed. "Misato-san?" he tried, and Misato wasn't certain if the fact that his tone was emotive even while the rest of him was so still was a good sign or a bad sign.

"Mou," Misato made a show of pouting cutely, giving a resigned huff of a sigh. "I suppose that's the best I'm gonna get from you, isn't it, Shinji-kun?"

"I suppose," the boy admitted, sounding a bit embarassed, and Misato was relieved when the boy's mouth managed to quirk into the faintest bit of a smile at their byplay. Good. Looks like there was still some life in the kid.

"So," Misato began, glancing to the door of the room, remembering the figure of the other man. There were still a number of possible reasons for the stranger's presence. If she was going to act on her suspicions, she had to make absolutely sure that the other man really wasn't supposed to be here. Hell, he had been hanging around Shinji earlier, when she had arrived to pick him up. Maybe they knew eachother? "I wanted to be your first visitor, but it looks like someone already beat me here," she announced, still maintaining the cheerful air. "A friend of yours?"

Misato had to know if young Shinji was actually familiar with the other man, if maybe they really were aquaintances. More than that, she wanted to know if Shinji was aware of the man who was apparently following him.

When the smile disappeared from Shinji's face, and his head ducked even lower, Misato got her answers: no, the man wasn't supposed to be here, and yes, Shinji most definitely knew of his presence.

Knew, and did not appreciate.

"Shinji-kun," Misato began, and this time the playfulness was gone. Instead, there was cautious curiosity, a gentle probing. This wasn't the time to be the commanding officer or a stern adult. If there really was something wrong here, than it was time to be the comforting shoulder, the confident. "Shinji, if there's something wrong, I want you to know that you can tell me."

Shinji said nothing, just sitting, not moving at all. This worried Misato, nearly as much as the other man's presence did. She moved closer, sitting on the edge of the bed so she could try and lend her presence physically as comfort. Misato was a physical person herself, and she knew just how much it could mean just to have someone you could touch nearby. Gently, she placed her hand on top of his, trying to get a reaction.

Nothing. Not even a start, or a withdraw. Shinji continued to just sit there silently. Now beginning to seriously worry about the boy, Misato deliberately leaned forward, letting her hair fall around her face as she lowered her head until she could look up at Shinji. It was an awkward position, but Misato needed to see Shinji's eyes, needed to see if she could get him to relax.

When brown eyes met blue, Misato realized that she hadn't even known what color his eyes were until this moment.

Misato took in the boy's expression. His eyes looked wrong, like there was something there that shouldn't be, and it took a moment for Misato to realize what was off: wrinkles. Crow's feet around the corner of his eyes, a slight gauntness and sunken look which spoke of great stress, of great fear Misato realized with a growing tightness in her stomach.

For a moment, while Misato studied the boy's eyes, they remained focused on his lap, locked as though made of stone on his hands, and Misato's hand by extension. Then, the boy finally seemed to realize that something else was in his line of sight. His head never moved, but his gaze shifted until they finally met Misato's own for the first time. Shinji actually seemed surprised, and Misato wondered just how long his trend of looking down had been going on. How long had it been since anyone bothered to get down to this level, to actually look at the boy's face and let themselves be seen in return.

Shinji finally moved, flinching slightly, before his eyes shifted back down to his hands. Still, it was a reaction and Misato was glad for that much.

"Shinji-kun," Misato began, trying to get his attention again, trying to wheedle a response from him. "I want to help you, but I need to know. Who was that?"

Her voice was gentle, insistent, and filled with need. Misato hadn't had to work to get the need in there. She found that she genuinely wanted to know just who the other man was, just what he had done to make this boy in front of her so afraid. She hadn't known Shinji for long, but she found that she liked the kid. He was also needed to pilot an enormous weapon of mass destruction against the invading forces of space, but at this moment in time that was genuinely a secondary concern.

Misato wanted to know what she could do to help the young man she was becoming slightly fond of.

Maybe it was because of the honesty in her tone, or maybe it was because she had made the effort to really connect with him, to lower herself literally until she could meet his eyes, but slowly Shinji's gaze settled back on hers.

"I call him the slender man," he whispered, a shiver going through his body, before he tensed once more. His eyes immediately dropped to his hand, and his jaw set as he locked it tight. Misato knew that expression. It meant that there wasn't any point in asking any more questions, that nothing she could do right now short of violence or maybe drugs would get the boy to speak.

That was fine though. Misato gave his folded hands what she hoped was a comforting squeeze. She had gotten enough to know that there was definitely something wrong here.

And she had decided she liked the kid enough that she was going to do something about it.

"So, Shinji-kun!" Misato's voice was once more cheerful, and the tension in Shinji seemed to ease in surprised response. "Tell me, how would you like a sexy bombshell like me as a roommate?"

Still, she had to look after the safety of Shinji first.

"Misato-san?" Shinji asked, the tension in his jaw loosening slightly as he responded with confusion to her unexpected offer.

"Well, I should warn you, I tend to like to walk around the house in my underwear," Misato playfully giggled, giving a wink that she knew Shinji wouldn't be able to see in his current position. "So you'll be sure to get plenty of service!"

When Shinji actually began to blush a little, Misato nodded. Mission accomplished! Shinji was definitely distracted from whatever it was that was worrying him now!

She had heard that NERV was originally planning on putting the pilot up on base housing, letting the boy live alone even at his age. Well, Misato had decided that that just wouldn't do. There was definitely something wrong here, whoever this slender man was, and Misato was damned if she was going to let whatever it was that had terrified this young boy so much continue.

Idly, unconsciously, Misato's hand drifted for the shoulder rig concealed under her jacket and the nine millimeter Beretta that was concealed there. If this slender man really was so much of a problem, she might just be willing to use some of the clout NERV held to get her answers out of him. That phone call to Section Two was definitely moving up on her priority list.


	2. Chapter 2

Don't Look

_Author's Notes: I said expect updates fast and hard, and here you go. Chapters are a lot shorter than my normal stories, so that helps. Also, I already have the story pretty much written up in my head, so that helps to. Add in very little in the way of character development or deep introspection, and you got the making for fast chapters._

_Anyway, most readers have already figured out that this is a Slender Man crossover, though whether Slender Man counts as a video game or an urban legend is anyone's guess at this point. This story is going to only be about five chapters, and I plan on the fourth and fifth being released on Halloween, so this should take less than a week to finish up. _

_The plot is going to be somewhat 'Horror Movie' formulaic, I think, but the final two chapters should be different enough to shake that up as well. _

_Anyway, here you go, next chapter of Don't Look. The adults 'Just Don't Get It', and someone important dies. Gotta love it when that happens._

_Gabriel Blessing'_

_*Story Start*_

When Shinji gave his customary 'Heading out', Misato couldn't help but marvel at how easily the boy had managed to slip into her life. Why, she had actually managed to get a 'Come back safely' out as well, and that was in spite of the raging hangover that she was currently sporting.

Somehow, Shinji's voice didn't quite manage to make her already throbbing headache get worse. Through some miracle of science, or maybe some sort of strange magic, Misato had already become so accustomed to the soft spoken boy that his tonal range somehow managed to slip through the pain receivers in her noggin', and actually be a soothing sound. Maybe it was the pitch, or the volume, but hearing Shinji say he was heading to school actually managed to be soothing to the woman

Unfortunately, her own voice had none of those redeeming qualities, and her own customary response drilled into her skull like a nail gun. With a further aggravating groan, Misato buried her head into her pillow, hoping the soft thing would make the hurting stop.

It did, sort of, for a while, and then her phone went off and Misato tried to decide if maybe it might not be better to use one of the nearby beer can's pop tops to gouge our her eardrums then further deal with this audio assault.

In the end, she decided that being permanently deaf might impede on both her career and her own personal endeavors at the moment, and thus ungracefully answered the shrill torture implement that allowed people to converse with others from a distance.

"I have a gun," she said, once the phone was finally pulled free from its hanger and dragged under the mess of sheets so she could properly answer it. "And I know how to use it."

"Oh ha ha," Ritsuko's dry and less than overwhelmed response to the implied threat proved once more just how familiar she was with her old friend's habits. "What happened to 'I know where you live and I've seen where you sleep'?"

"Well, it got out of fashion once I really got a gun and really did learn how to use it," Misato grumbled back, but the sound of her old friend was enough to help pull her a bit more towards consciousness. "Is it that time of the week again?" she continued, finally sitting up and shedding blankets like a snake does its old skin.

"You agreed to it," Ritsuko reminded her friend, knowing just what it was Misato was referring to and intending to show no mercy at any attempt to dodge the topic. She was surprised when Misato continued.

"Yeah, and it's about time," Misato reached over to her nightstand and grabbed several sheets of paper which had been thickly cluttered with her own somewhat messy hand writing. Prominently written on the top of the cover page was 'Psychological Report: Shinji Ikari' next to a picture of the boy. She was thankful that Shinji was so nervous about coming in to her room, especially when she was sleeping, otherwise he might have seen the reports she had been making without his knowledge. "When spying on the kid was listed as a condition for living with him, I was upset about the breach in privacy," she admitted, propping the phone up on her shoulder so she could use both hands to straighten the papers. "Now though…"

"Well that's different," Ritsuko noted, a little surprised at the change in Misato's tune. Her drunken friend had been quite distraught at the potential betrayal of trust in the young man that the reports might constitute. The only reason that she would be in favor of them now was… "What have you found out?"

"That there's something seriously wrong with the boy," Misato declared, her voice firm as she idly glanced through her observations. Ritsuko found herself sitting up straighter in her office, and the blonde began to reach for her coffee to help her get through whatever Misato was about to reveal, only to discover that the coffee had betrayed her and given in to the cold.

Cursing coffee, and whatever vengeful spirit was responsible for seeping all the warmth out of her life, Ritsuko set about making a new pot for herself. "Go on," she encouraged Misato, waiting to hear what her friend had discovered.

"For one thing, he never looks up," Misato decided to begin with the same thing that had first tipped her off. Ritsuko found herself rolling her eyes at the observation.

"Well, just because he doesn't take the time to appreciate the view…" the scientist began sarcastically, only for Misato to cut her off.

"No, I don't mean he mostly stares at the ground," Misato insisted. "I mean he NEVER looks up. Once he moved in with me, he started cleaning up a bit around the house, and doing some cooking…"

"Misato, you really don't intend to make him a downtrodden man maid, do you?" Ritsuko felt like slapping her forehead, recalling some of Misato's weirder fantasies and/or fetishes from back in college.

"No, he just did that on his own," Misato insisted, starting to get annoyed as her friend continued to interrupt her. "But when I say never, I mean never. The first thing he did in the kitchen was to rearrange all the upper pantries."

"Obsessive compulsive disorder isn't exactly an uncommon condition," Ritsuko noted.

"Would you shut up and let me finish my freaking explanation, or do I really need to get my gun?" Misato demanded, and Ritsuko decided that maybe she was pushing the teasing just a little too far. Misato had been getting rather possessive of the Third Child, after all, so maybe he wasn't the best button to be pushing at the moment. "Now, may I continue?"

Ritsuko took great delight in not saying anything, at that, and Misato gave a small growl when she realized that Ritsuko did it in response to Misato telling her to shut up and mostly to annoy her.

"Now," Misato continued, her frown growing as she turned back to her reports. "I said he rearranged all the pantries, but I don't think it was so he could just make his mark, so to speak. I think it was so when he cooks he that he can find all his tools without having to see them. It's a technique that a lot of blind people use to organize their houses."

"While it's fascinating how skilled he is at organizing his environment," Ritsuko answered back, now trying to be a little serious, "it's no sign that there's anything wrong with him. Maybe he just doesn't like looking around?"

"No, I already tried to test that," Misato disagreed. "I've been trying to get the kid to look up normally, hopefully without being too obvious. Dropping things on accident, pointing things out, walking around the house naked, the usual sorts of things that make people glance around. So far, no matter what, Shinji never looks."

Ritsuko was silent for a moment thinking about what her friend had said. "Well, maybe Shinji is just pretty calm and doesn't get excited very easily, and did you just say walking around the house NAKED?" Ritsuko's voice rose shrilly as she caught on to the little tidbit Misato had added in there so casually. "I thought you said you weren't going to put the moves on a fourteen year old!"

It was Misato's turn to grin at having gotten a rise out of her friend. "Relax. I'm not. But I'm serious when I say I've been trying to get any kind of movement out of him. The 'nude descending the stairs' bit was kind of my last hope. Nothing. Kid didn't even glance. Not a twitch out of him."

"Leaving aside just how morally wrong something like that is," Ritsuko was gritting her teeth, and wished sincerely that the coffee would just hurry the hell up. "Maybe the kid isn't interested? Maybe he's still too young, or maybe you're just not his type?"

"No," Misato disagreed smugly. "He's interested. I said he never moves, not that he doesn't react in other ways."

"Misato," Ritsuko began, drawing out her name slowly. "I have the number to child safety services, and I know how to use it."

"Oh ha ha," Misato drawled back. "Copycat. And no, it's not like that again. He blushes, and he'll stammer. And the first night here he had a run in with Pen Pen in the bath that ended up with him running around naked himself, so it's not like I'm the first one in the house to do it. Trust me, he's a healthy young man well into puberty and has an interest in females."

Ritsuko really wanted to find further fault with that statement, but the thing was she too had had run ins with that penguin before, and despite how improbable the scenario Misato was painting she found herself sighing as she bought into it.

"Stupid perverted aquatic avian," the blond grumbled, giving a shiver at the last time she had been cornered by the bird in the bath. Misato grinned even further at her friends past trauma.

"Anyway," she continued, flipping through her notes as she made her way to her next point. "At first I was worried that his little quirk was something physical. Like a condition or something which made it hard for him to move, or painful or something."

"Hmm," Ritsuko hummed at that, letting her mind drift over her friends point. "Well, he had an extensive physical after the defeat of the third angel," she noted. "There was no sign of any sort of condition which could manifest with those kinds of symptoms. No scoliosis, pinched nerves, nothing of the sort."

"I already checked on that," Misato agreed. "Plus, I've seen him move on occasion. I watched him sleep a few times, and he displayed full mobility while unconscious."

"And this just gets creepier and creepier," Ritsuko pointed out dryly. "Do I even need to point out how inappropriate watching a child, your ward especially, sleep is?"

"Actually, that brings me to the third point," Misato didn't bother to disagree with her friend. Ritsuko had a good point there, and if the situation was different than she would be agreeing. "The nightmares."

At this point, Ritsuko was officially interested in Misato's report. It might have started out strange, but the more evidence Misato was bringing up, the more the picture started to get clear. "Nightmares?" she prompted, waiting to see where this would go.

"Bad ones," Misato agreed. "The first few times it happened, I thought maybe it was the battle with the angel…"

"A reasonable assumption," Ritsuko noted, recalling the violent encounter with the extraterrestrial beast. "If anything would give a child his age a nightmare…"

"That's the thing," Misato interrupted, speaking quickly as a bit of frustration crept into her voice. "When I tried to ask him about it, you know, be there to give a shoulder to cry on, he just said that he's had them for a while."

"What were they about?" Ritsuko prompted, seeing where Misato was going with this. If the dreams had been happening even before he arrived in Tokyo Three, then they must have been prompted by something else.

"I don't know," Misato admitted, the frustration growing as she scrubbed her hand through her hair. "The moment he realized what he said, he clammed up tight. Won't talk about them anymore, not even with fan service."

"Fan service?" Ritsuko unknowingly copied her friend's movement, palming her forehead as she heard Misato's outrageous claim. "Misato," she began. "I really do have the number to child services you know."

"Oh give it a rest," Misato snapped back, frowning at her phone. "I meant just physical contact. Things like hugs and comforting touches. They seem to calm him down sometimes when he's sleeping, not so much when he's awake."

Ritsuko sighed, but recognized that was probably to be expected of Misato. The other woman always did skip to skinship pretty quickly, though she did tend to keep it within reasonable limits so long as you weren't in a relationship with her. There was a woman not afraid to hug a new acquaintance, that much was certain, and if you were dating her, well, Ritsuko had had to spend a few days during college at hotel rooms in order to avoid violating their roommate agreement about not interfering with the other's happy time.

"It doesn't help too much when he has one of his episodes though," Misato continued, drawing Ritsuko back to the conversation and away from the bad memories of younger days. Her tone caused Ritsuko to frown.

"Episodes?" The scientist hadn't heard anything about the boy having fits of any sort.

"Sometimes, he just goes still," Misato explained, trying to keep her worry out of her voice so she could remain professional. "And I don't mean just sitting quietly, I mean like absolutely still. No movement, nothing. It doesn't matter what he was doing before, he just freezes. It's like looking at a statue or a mannequin or something."

"How often do these fits happen?" Ritsuko prompted, now back at her desk with coffee in hand, already pulling up Shinji's files.

"At least once a day," Misato reported, glancing at her own report to confirm. "Usually in the evening. At first, I just wrote it off, but when it kept happening I started to look into it. I was worried about something like epilepsy, but there have been no reports in his history."

"It does sound like some kind of seizure," Ritsuko admitted, also glancing through the boy's medical profile. "But we were pretty thorough in his screening after he was admitted for his post battle checkup. There's no diagnosed condition for something like that to happen."

"I thought so," Misato said grimly. "Which brings me back to my report to Section Two."

"Misato," Ritsuko grimaced, already knowing about the infamous report. "There was no proof or evidence of any unauthorized personnel being present in that wing of the hospital at the time. It was right after the angel attack, and since the hospital was housing vital personnel security was particularly strict at the time."

"I know what I saw, Ritsuko," Misato insisted, her voice serious. "There was someone there. Someone who shouldn't have been there. Someone who Shinji knew, and was scared of. The other man not showing up on any of the security cameras doesn't mean that he wasn't there, it just means that he was good at avoiding the cameras."

"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence?" Ritsuko quoted back at her friend dryly, but frankly she was beginning to have doubts herself. Initially, when Misato had called up Section Two to deliver a scathing report of their blazing incompetence by allowing a potentially dangerous individual near the injured Third Child, there had been a bit of a stir, but when no evidence of any person was found it was eventually written off. Ritsuko herself had chalked it up to post battle nerves and Misato's tendency to overreact at times.

But the more Misato reported about the Third Child's condition, the more doubt she was having over her initial assessment.

"So what's your conclusion?" the blonde finally prompted her friend, sighing as she leaned back in her chair. "About this, what did Shinji call him? Slim man?"

"Slender man," Misato corrected, flopping back on her mattress. "And so far, the best I can come up with is he's some sort of persistent stalker, maybe an instigator of some kind of abuse. Shinji's conditioned response to never look up, his nightmares, even his persistent physical symptoms of stress, it all leads to the conclusion that whatever is going on, it's been going on for a while."

Ritsuko's lips pursed at the mention of Shinji's stress symptoms. It was a bit unnerving to see a child of his age with such obvious wrinkles, and it was a bit of a sore spot to her that it had been Misato who had been the first to notice. Never the less, she was having trouble finding any holes in Misato's theory. But so far, that was all she could call it: a theory.

"Misato," Ritsuko began, trying to be gentle as she gave the news that she knew her friend wouldn't like. "So far all you have is a few general suspicions and a couple of events which might just be coincidence. There is no actual proof that there is anything going on besides a kid having self-esteem issues while dealing with the stress of having the survival of the world on his shoulders."

"I know," Misato snapped back, grimacing as she did so. "I know that, Ritsuko," she repeated, calming herself down. "But the fact of the matter is we have enough evidence to at least increase security on the Third Child," she insisted. "Even if it falls out, there is still the very real chance that the safety of the Third Child is in danger. And considering who he is and what responsibilities he has, can we really risk it?"

Ritsuko grimaced, realizing that Misato was right in that aspect. Chances were that it was nothing, just a serious of coincidences, but then again, if it wasn't and something happened to the Third Child due to negligence, well, that could very well be the end of the world.

"We'll have to take this up with the Commander," Ritsuko finally surrendered. "Since it concerns a chance of risk to the pilots, the final decision will have to be approved by him."

Unseen by Ritsuko, Misato gave a victorious grin, bringing her fist up in a 'yes!' gesture. Finally, she'd be able to do something besides spy on the poor kid! After all, Shinji was the Commander's son. There was no way that a parent would ever let something like their child be stalked by some sicko go, was there?"

*Scene Break*

"Denied," Gendo declared firmly, hands crossed in front of his face as the light glinted off his glasses.

"What?" Misato asked, honestly unable to believe what she had heard. The meeting between the Commander, Ritsuko, and herself had originally been scheduled for earlier, but then there had been that whole untimely angel attack incident. Honestly, they wait twelve years before making a move, and then they just start coming at the worst of possible times.

Guys like that were the ones women hate the most!

"I said denied, Captain," Gendo repeated, his voice cool. "NERV does not have the resources to be wasted on nonexistent threats."

"Nonexistent?" Misato repeated, trying her best to keep from shouting at her commanding officer, and only partially succeeding. "Sir, the evidence we have gathered," she began, only to be cut off by the other man.

"Is not evidence," Gendo noted dispassionately. "Hearsay and conjecture do not qualify for the expenditure of additional and unnecessary protection from rampant paranoia."

"Rampant paranoia?" Misato repeated, gritting her teeth as she struggled to believe that the Commander, Shinji's own father, was really so cold as to ignore the struggles of his own offspring. "Sir, even if it is circumstantial, there is certainly enough to warrant…" she tried one last time to make the other man see what was happening, and again was cut off.

"Dismissed, Captain," Gendo ordered her. "Continue to see to the aftermath of the battle."

"Right away, sir," it took a physical effort for Misato to remain in control of her temper as she realized that yes, the commander was really going to leave his own son to the machinations of some psychotic stalker. "Just what color is your blood?" she couldn't quite contain her growl as she stalked to the door of his office, but it was low enough that the other two occupants of the room could pretend to ignore the breach of decorum.

In the silence that remained, Ritsuko couldn't help but glance at the door her best friend had just slammed with a grimace of empathy. Even she couldn't help but feel that the Commander's orders might have been a touch artic.

"Sir," the blonde began, speaking cautiously. It was hard to tell sometimes just what kind of reactions Gendo would have to otherwise normal stimuli. "While Captain Katsuragi might be overreacting, there certainly is enough gathered psychological evidence to warrant an increase in security."

It was a last ditch effort to help her friend's cause, one which Ritsuko honestly thought would be dismissed just as casually as Misato's was. Thus, it came as an honest shock when rather than cut her off, her lover actually nodded, agreeing easily and without hesitation.

"I have little doubt that the situation is indeed what the Captain thinks it is," Gendo admitted, his tone never changing as his opinion one eightied completely in a matter of seconds. It was all Ritsuko could do not to gawk at the confession. "The fact that the Captain managed to ascertain the situation so quickly only increases my confidence in her ability."

"Then, why?" Ritsuko felt like a stuttering child as she struggled to understand the implacable man seated before her. The glare off of Gendo's glasses faded as the other man lowered his head slightly, concealing more of his face behind his hands.

"Because there are factors that Captain Katsuragi is unaware of," he answered simply.

"Factors?" Ritsuko repeated, before understanding hit her like a bolt of lightning. "Seele," she declared, feeling a grim certainty settle over her.

The shadowy organization to which NERV owed its very existence to, the collection of some of the richest and most powerful individuals in the world, the driving force behind the Instrumentality Project. And most importantly, the organization which was technically Gendo Ikari's superior, and most certainly didn't trust the man.

Having an agent follow young Shinji made sense in that respect. They would have a man in place to threaten Gendo's son, to hopefully have some leverage over him. Moreover, by deliberately having Shinji Ikari in the condition he was, it was a way to control even the pilot itself if they needed to. His obvious fear, his response to whatever conditioning the agent might be responsible for, all of it led to a way to control the boy himself, and by controlling him having some control over the war machine he piloted.

In that context, Gendo's obvious dismissal of Misato's concern made a certain degree of sense. If he made an actual response, some sort of effort to protect the Third Child, then it would only prove to Seele that the boy was a viable method of leverage on the man. In a way, by not reacting to Seele's provocations, Gendo might actually be protecting the boy better than a dozen more agents could.

"You know that Captain Katsuragi is most likely with the boy right now?" Ritsuko felt obliged to point out. She knew her friend, and if there was one thing that Misato wasn't was it was a quitter. Now that her suspicions had been raised and then struck down it was likely that she would only work three times as hard to help the boy she had taken in. If anything, Gendo's denial of resources had most likely just bought the young Ikari more safety than that dozen Section Two agents would have ever been able to afford him.

"So long as it doesn't interfere with her duties, I see no reason to interfere," was his only response. It made Ritsuko shiver again.

Had the man deliberately arranged the situation so that Misato would take over Shinji's safety, or did he genuinely not care about his son? Ritsuko found she couldn't tell, couldn't figure out the implacable force of nature given flesh which was Gendo Ikari.

She shivered again as she realized she liked that sensation.

Maybe Gendo noticed her other reaction, or maybe he had his own intentions in mind, but when he lowered his hand and gave the scientist a direct look Ritsuko found she didn't particularly care.

"Come here," he ordered her, and Ritsuko knew that the order was going to lead to the kind of thing a superior officer and a subordinate definitely shouldn't be doing.

Again, she found she didn't particularly care.

Still, even as she shrugged out of her lab coat to let it pool behind her and began to nervously approach her lover, a stray thought went through her mind only momentarily.

What if Gendo was wrong about the so called 'slender man'?

*Scene Break*

Touji Suzuhara wasn't exactly the most introspective of people. He was fine with that, really. Sometimes overthinking led to doing stupid things. He was the kind of guy who liked sports, disliked lessons, and bluntly spoke his mind without thought to such petty things as social niceties.

Still, even he could do a little self-study on occasion, and that was precisely what he was doing in Nagasaki Park right around sundown. The park itself was technically closed, something about construction, but Touji didn't care. Nagasaki Park had the best basketball courts in the city, and when he did set about doing a little introspection he did it best with a ball in hand, and a hoop in front of him.

Still, even as he sank yet another three point shot, the boy's mind was instead going over the events of the day. The anger that had settled in him, which seeing his little sister in the hospital always stoked, that had been plenty present earlier, he decided. It was a good example of why overthinking things was a dumb idea in his book. After all, if he had just moved on, thought about something else, than maybe he wouldn't have hit that new kid, Shinji Ikari today.

Honestly, the anger had only been part of the reasons behind his attack on the pilot. Yeah, he had confronted the kid, wanting a fight, but for some reason the new kid's attitude only had increased that anger. The way the boy wouldn't meet his eyes like a man, the way he just kept staring meekly at the ground; for some reason that only increased Touji's ire at the time.

Maybe if the pilot had said something, or shown some sort of personal remorse, had looked him in the eye and apologized, maybe that would have helped the situation end without violence. But when Touji had saw the boy just looking down, ignoring him, it felt like the other boy had been ignoring all the pain he had caused Touji and his family, the pain his sister was in, and the anger had just gotten worse. So Touji had hit the kid, hit him hard, and he was certain that if the kid's bangs hadn't been hiding his eyes than the shiner he had given the other boy would have been a doozy.

But then the angel had attacked, and Kensuke had managed to convince him to leave the shelter and watch the battle. Then the giant squid looking thing had thrown the robot the new kid he had just beaten up was piloting at them, and they had been forced to seek refuge in the cockpit with him.

And then Touji had felt real pain, a phantom pain of burning hot daggers carving into his stomach, of agony through his hands like he had grabbed cherry hot steel, and suddenly his emotional pain kind of felt inconsequential.

In fact, getting all worked up like that kind of made Touji feel like a bit of a sissy boy. Real men didn't have emotions, damnit! They just spent their time being stoic and gazing into the sunset, explosions in the background as they bore their pain with pride!

"I am such an idiot," Touji finally admitted to himself with a sigh, tossing his basketball once again. When it sank perfectly through the hoop, he began the jog back to get it. "Man," he continued to grumble, "now I gotta find a way to apologize to the kid. To Shinji," he corrected, deciding that he was going to use the other boy's real name now.

Still, Touji wasn't used to apologizing. It didn't really feel right to him, that just saying words like 'I'm sorry' would really make up for the black eye he had given the other boy. Touji was a straight up guy, and he figured that the best way to make up for a hit was to get one in return.

"Alright," Touji decided, glancing up at the sky as he finally worked his way through his plan to apologize. "I'll just go up to the kid and let him have a punch." He nodded at the plan, liking the way it felt in his mind. It was a glorious sunset at the time, and it kind of appealed to Touji's heavily influenced by manga and anime sense of 'The Romance of Man'. Maybe he could try and arrange for the return punch to happen at a time like this? Maybe on a hill or something…

That was when Touji's thoughts were interrupted as he realized he wasn't alone in the park.

"Jezuz, man," he snapped, starting in surprise as he caught sight of the other guy standing across the court from him. "Don't you know this place is closed?" he demanded, ignoring outright that he himself shouldn't be in the park as well. "If you have to use the shitter, just hit the convenience store by the entrance!"

The other guy didn't move, and Touji wondered just what he was doing. The other guy was tall, and looked like he was dressed like a salary man, dark suit and white shirt and all. Touji assumed the guy had to use the toilet, seeing as he was standing partially behind the restrooms and all.

Seeing as he had already told the guy off, Touji turned briefly, retrieving the basketball he had slipped earlier when he jumped, when he turned back, he realized that the man had gotten closer, somehow having moved to the other side of the restroom, the corner nearer to him in the brief moment he had looked away.

"Weirdo," Touji decided, but despite the dismissal in his voice, he couldn't help being a bit unnerved by the way the stranger had moved so quickly. That unease only increased as he realized where the other man was looking. It was hard to see his face, with the glare of the sunset and everything, but for some reason it felt like he was looking directly at Touji.

When the man moved, his head twitching to the side, cocking like a bird with a jarringly quick motion, Touji decided that yeah, this guy was officially creepy.

"Well, whatever," he said loudly, trying to use volume to drown the growing unease. "Freak," he muttered, tucking his ball securely under his arm and turning to jog away.

It wasn't far to the exit of Nagasaki Park, but Touji decided to just head for the nearest boarder. The entire place was blocked off by a chain-link fence in order to keep people from entering while they were renovating the park, but as Touji's presence there proved it wasn't exactly the most effective of deterrents. As Touji was cutting through the circling grove of trees that the park boasted, he paused, his own head tilting to the side.

"The hell?" he muttered, straining his ears as he tried to identify the strange noise. "That doesn't sound like cicadas."

Tokyo Three, ever since Second Impact had shifted the axis of the planet enough to make Japan a near tropic country, had always boasted hot summers and very mild winters. It was the perfect kind of environment for the noisy insects to make their home in, and their population thrived. The sound of their chirping was so common that most people didn't even notice them anymore.

This sound was different though. It had the same kind of ever present and low background kind of noise to it, a low hum, or the mutter of a crowded street where there were just too many people to identify any individual conversation.

Despite the heat, Touji felt a shiver go down his spine. He began to pick up his pace, the unease only growing at the unnatural noise. He swallowed, and the relief he felt when the chain-link fence came into sight almost made him giddy. He didn't know what was going on, but he was definitely getting away from the suddenly creepy park, and that weird guy. Touji glanced back, wanting to see if the other man was following him, and was relieved when he couldn't see the stranger anymore.

He must have ran off, or maybe he really had just needed the toilet, Touji decided.

And then Touji turned back to the fence, and gave an unmanly yelp, dropping his basketball and stumbling to a halt as he came face to face with the freak again, this time standing no more than a dozen feet away from him, watching him from the other side of the chain link fence.

He was closer now, and though the sunlight was still glaring off his face, the chain link fence didn't conceal his body nearly as well as the restroom had, and Touji could look down, taking in his too slim frame, his unusual height, the way his arms seemed so stretched, and then Touji saw his fingers, and no, those weren't fingers, they COULDN'T be fingers, they were too long, they were wrong, the man was just WRONG, and _what were those things coming out of his arms_…!

"Oh shit," Touji whispered, his eyes wide, his mind trying desperately to understand what was in front of him, but just as desperately trying to ignore it, to refuse its existence, because something like that couldn't exist, it just couldn't, and whatever it was it was watching him, Touji just knew it. "Oh shit!" Touji repeated, this time his voice high and loud as took a stumbling step back. The thing didn't move, but Touji knew, a deep and ingrained instinct that had been bred into humanity for generations that he had to get away, and he had to get away now.

"Shit!" Even Touji couldn't deny that that last exclamation was anything other than a high pitched scream, and the boy turned, abandoning his ball as sprinted away from the fence and the thing that was standing there watching him.

The sunset that he had been admiring so ardently only moments ago was suddenly not manly, and more ominous. The world was died in shades of red, and the park's trees cast long shadows, a mottled mix of crimson and black. Frantically, panting despite his good physical condition, Touji stumbled as his shoulder impacted a trunk, unable to dodge a tree completely at the speed he was moving. He recovered instantly, twisting his body to keep his balance as he looked back, not wanting to see the thing ever again but needing to know that it wasn't getting closer, that he was putting distance between it and him, and when he found that the thing was gone, he felt no relief at its absence.

Where was it, where was it, where was it? That was the one thought going through Touji's head as he took in the sight of the abandoned fence. If it wasn't there it could be anywhere, and for Touji that thought was somehow more frightening than the actual sight of the creature itself.

When he turned back around to make sure he wasn't about to run into a tree again, he found it. He couldn't stop his sprint, but he tried anyway, tripping and falling to the ground.

Right at the foot of the thing which had somehow managed to get directly in front of him in the space between one moment and the next without making even a sound. Touji was shaking, still panting as he looked up, up the creature's too long limbs, too many and too wrong, and he saw the creature's face without the glare of the sun on it.

Touji realized he had been mistaken. It really was more terrifying to see the thing than not see it.

Something warm dripped down his leg as he lost control of his bowels, and he screamed.

Touji's scream was shrill and loud, and it only lasted a moment before it was cut off by another loud noise, like something thick and wet being torn in half. Silence settled into the park.

His last thoughts weren't about apologizing to Shinji or the Romance of Men. His last thoughts were of his sister.


	3. Chapter 3

Don't Look

_Author's notes: And since I had yesterday off, and the story is hot in my head, here you, next chapter of Don't Look._

_Few things here. Taking the Slender Man a bit away from his game incarnation, and started pulling more on his folklore. Many reports of the Slender man see him interacting with children, children that vanish soon afterwards. Thus, I get to use some of that folklore as Shinji reveals his back story in a hopefully believable and creepy way. I figure that since children actually follow the Slender Man, despite how he looks, there must be something to him, some sort of Pied Piper type thing which makes them come, which makes them want to come. Hope that helps make sense._

_The part about Shinji finding a bike is also directly from the manga, so I figured I could add that in there._

_Next, the Slender Man speaking. There are recordings of his voice, so yes he can talk. He just doesn't doe it in the Slender game, so this might be a bit outside of some of the reader's expectations. Hope it doesn't throw too many readers off._

_Finally, and I guess I should put this up with a _

_*Spoilers Alert*_

_Seriously, take a second to read the story, then come back here._

_You have no idea how tricky it was to write Rei's meeting with the Slender Man. It very nearly went something like this:_

_Rei stared at the Slender Man._

_The Slender Man stared at Rei._

_This tableau held, until finally the Slender Man looked to the side._

_"Creepy," muttered the Slender Man._

_Yeah, that would have broken the tension a bit too much though._

_*End Spoilers*_

_Now, enjoy the story where Misato shows some of that mother bear syndrome of hers, and Rei proves that no one is safe. No one._

_Enjoy!_

_Gabriel Blessing_

*Story Start*

It had been twelve days since Touji disappeared, and Kensuke Aida just knew that there was something wrong. It didn't take the police showing up at school to conduct interviews on the students about his absence, or even those stereotypical goons that NERV had had question him specifically over the last time he had seen his best friend to figure that out.

"It's a conspiracy," Kensuke declared, getting the attention of the class rep, Hikari Horaki. The freckled twin tail had been spending a lot of time around him lately, and though it puzzled Kensuke at first he had been able to figure out the reason for her attention soon enough.

Well, figuring it out was easy enough. Actually believing that the tyrannical class rep had had a crush on his jock friend had taken a bit of time for the military obsessed nerd.

"What's a conspiracy, Aida-kun?" Hikari prompted her unlikely companion. Three days ago, if anyone had asked, she never would have believed that she would ever have a reason to deliberately seek out the socially inept otaku. However, that was before Touji had disappeared.

Hikari wasn't really sure how she felt about the other boy. He was loud, and abrasive, and a constant thorn in the side of her reign as Class Representative, but well, he was kind of cute, and sometimes she would find herself watching the taller boy out of the corner of her eyes, and she had kind of been wondering if maybe he would like it if she were to bring a bento to replace the bread he usually had for lunch…

However, whatever might have come from her crush, the fact that he had vanished without a trace had been a harsh blow to bear. Now, any emotion of liking or being interested had been replaced with a small nauseous feeling of worry. Where was he? Was he alright? Had something happened to him?

It was the not knowing that really got to Hikari, which had her finding herself sometimes chewing on her thumb nails unconsciously. Everybody in the class was affected by it, by the sudden shock that something could happen to someone they knew, that the real world existed and that they were a part of it all these years without ever realizing it. But for Hikari, stronger interest in Touji had made the revelation especially obvious.

And that was the reason that she found herself in Kensuke's presence more and more often the last few days. Touji had been his best friend, though how it was that a nerd and a jock had ended up like that was anyone's guess. The only person who was having a stronger reaction to Touji's disappearance then Hikari was Kensuke.

However, she was finding out the hard way that when Kensuke worried he started reaching out to more and more improbable scenarios, going above and over the top of logic to try and find an explanation, any explanation, no matter how incredible it might be.

If things were less serious she might actually find it amusing.

"This whole thing with Touji," Kensuke grumbled, answering her question and bringing her thoughts back to the topic they had been discussing. "He just so happens to disappear out of nowhere, right after having been exposed to NERV's military secrets? I don't think so."

"What do you mean?" Hikari began, before pausing, and looking around the room. NERV was a constant presence in the lives of all who live in Tokyo Three, but among this room it was a bit more important than for some of the other residents. Actually, most of the students here had some connection with the military organization through their parents. Nearly the entire school was composed out of children of men or women in the employee of NERV. However, more than that there were two students in particular who had a much deeper connection.

Hikari had been sharing a classroom with Rei Ayanami for nearly three years now, and even with her scrupulously enforced charity when dealing with others the girl was just plain weird. The blue haired girl, and Hikari and several other schoolmates had spent long hours debating if that was her natural color as a result of her being some kind of albino or if she dyed it, never spoke, was absent for sometimes weeks on end, and had all the social graces of a rock. Hikari had tried to involve Rei in class many times, even tried to get her to open up to some of her other classmates in an effort to help the girl fit in, but every attempt had been met with that inscrutable look that Rei tended to give those who approached her, or was just ignored outright.

Hikari was still trying, but even she had come to accept that it was probably a pointless endeavor and her efforts were token at best.

It was the new boy which helped cement in Hikari's mind that there had to be something going on with the children NERV employed to pilot those gigantic machines of theirs. He was just… off somehow. He would respond to anyone who approached him, and he even sounded polite, or sometimes happy, his emotions matching the mood of whoever he was talking with.

It was just the way he refused to meet anyone's eyes, how he never, ever lifted his head. Hikari had thought maybe he was just shy or having trouble with moving to a new school, but it had been weeks, and even though he seemed to be fitting in, still he kept looking down.

Hikari had a moment to wonder if any more of their kind would be coming to class, and if they were just what would be wrong with the next pilot, before she squashed that uncharitable thought.

"You don't think NERV had something to do with Touji, do you?" she leaned forward, trying to keep her tone down as she asked Kensuke what he was trying to imply.

"Maybe," Kensuke shrugged, but he sounded doubtful. "But if NERV wanted to do something like that they would have had the chance back when we screwed up." That relaxed Hikari a great deal. She hadn't wanted to think poorly of the two pilots, but with things the way they were the idea that maybe they were involved had been lingering.

"But that doesn't mean that it isn't related," Kensuke went on to add, frowning as he did so. Hikari noted the way his school laptop was open, and felt her eyebrow twitch when she realized that what was on the screen was most definitely not approved school material. She would have called him to task about hacking the school's security, AGAIN, but then she caught sight of what he was looking up.

"'Repeated sightings of unidentified man'?" she read taking in the title of the forum that Kensuke was currently scrolling through. She recognized the website itself, and sighed as she recognized the title. It was one of the less reputable ones, claiming to be a reporter of news and more often ending up being a gossip rag or just an outright joke. She noted one of the forums declaring undeniable proof of a UFO being responsible for both crop circles and Spanish influenza, and had to suppress another sigh.

"Think about it," Kensuke didn't seem aware of the despair Hikari was feeling for the sake of the young man ever turning to credible news sources. "Sure, NERV didn't have to be responsible for it, but what if someone else wanted information on the Evangelions, and decided to grab someone who had actually seen one!"

It wasn't an unreasonable assumption, that much Hikari had to admit. It sounded a little improbable though. If there was some other organization, a rival or a spy or something, than surely they'd have better ways to get information then interrogating a fourteen year old kid who had only seen one once and most likely had no idea just what it was he was looking at? Not to mention…

"If that was the case, then wouldn't you be missing too?" Hikari pointed out gently, and Kensuke blinked, obviously having completely missed that little addendum to his current theory.

"Crap!" Kensuke yelped, before leaning forward to whisper with wide eyes, "they might be coming for me right now!"

"I think you're safe," Hikari reassured him, rolling her eyes at his obvious dramatics. Kensuke didn't seem completely mollified, so she decided to change the subject. "So what does this have to do with your conspiracy theory?" she asked, pointing out the screen he was looking at. Kensuke blinked, turning back to his computer before giving her a guilty look as he realized that he was currently looking at things he shouldn't be right in front of the Class Rep.

Hikari felt a thrill of pride at the sheepish expression that crossed his face. It looks like her attempts to impose order through fear were working!

"Well," Kensuke began, knowing that this would come up later and that he'd be paying for it eventually, but deciding that explaining his train of thought might buy him some leniency at that time. "It says that several of the local schools have reported sightings of a tall man in a suit, apparently watching children. Several of them have called the police, but so far there have been no suspects or reliable witnesses about the man."

"That sounds pretty farfetched," Hikari noted, gnawing briefly on her lower lip. "If someone really was stalking school yards, than wouldn't the police have sent a notice to parents by now?"

"That's the thing," Kensuke excitedly adjusted his glasses, his enthusiasm for his topic causing him to temporarily forget about his worry for Touji. "There are no official reports, no pictures or recordings or anything, but there have been a lot of calls about it. By now there should be some kind of warning like you said. But since there isn't, that means someone has to be suppressing them!"

Now this actually made a bit of sense to Hikari, though she firmly believed the validity of the reports was in question. It really wasn't the most reputable of sites, after all. "But who would be able to do something like that?" she asked, deciding to just play along for the sake of the conversation.

"Well, NERV could do it, obviously," Kensuke held up a finger to tick it off as he listed the most obvious option. "But what if there was some other organization, maybe like a rival to NERV, and they were trying to recruit someone who could be a pilot to their own robots?" Kensuke paused, eyes widening. "Maybe Touji could have been recruited! He could be piloting right now!" He scratched his head, eyes narrowing in thought. "Maybe I should try and find this guy myself…"

"No," Hikari told him firmly, unable to resist the urge to smack him lightly on the forehead. "There is no proof that there are any other organizations, and this whole thing is probably make believe." Her eyes narrowed further, and her tone started to approach 'lecturing'. "And furthermore, if there is someone stalking schools, than they are most likely not the kind of person you should be looking for deliberately!" She was about to launch into a lecture about personal responsibility and maintaining due diligence against possible molesters or child kidnappers when her eyes widened. "You don't think that Touji might have been…"

"No way," Kensuke declared firmly, folding his arms in resolution. He knew what Hikari was afraid of, what he too was secretly afraid of, but he refused to believe it. "There is no way someone could do something like that to Touji. If anyone tried, he'd just kick their asses."

Kensuke would not believe that Touji was in trouble. Not at all. Touji was his best friend, and he was strong. Touji would be able to take care of himself.

The thought that there were bigger and stronger people than even his friend refused to register. Kensuke wouldn't, COULDN'T, believe that something like that had happened to his friend, a denial so deep he couldn't even register the thought.

Hikari gave a sigh of relief, and even though she wasn't so firmly rooted in denial she allowed Kensuke's words and confidence to comfort her.

"So why are you so interested in this particular rumor?" Hikari had to ask, still looking over the ridiculous thread that Kensuke had been perusing.

"Well," Kensuke began, turning back to the screen as well, scrolling down to highlight a particular entry. "It says here that there have been sightings of him around the area of Nagasaki Park as well. I know that sometimes Touji likes to go there to blow off steam, and lately there have been some weird rumors about there too. Something to do with thick mists at night, or something like that. So I got to thinking, maybe the mists are because there's some sort of underground base there or something, and the mist was some kind of malfunction with their air venting system? If it was a base for a rival organization or something, than that would mean…"

"All of Tokyo Three is an underground base," Hikari cut off the boy before he could get started on another of his increasingly improbable ramblings. "We're above a geo-front, remember?"

"Oh, yeah," Kensuke deflated again at having another hole stuck into his conspiracy theory. Hikari sighed, before patting his shoulder sympathetically.

"Just why are you so certain these ridiculous sightings have to do with some kind of conspiracy?" she prompted, hoping to get to the root of Kensuke's suspicion so she could see if there was any basis in reality there.

"Well, just look at his description," Kensuke pointed out, again highlighting a particular segment. "Tall, thin, Caucasian, and wearing a suit. It sounds like some sort of agent, maybe from America or one of the European nations. If he was here to spy on NERV, than it would make sense, right?"

Hikari sighed again, and prepared to explain that no, it didn't make sense at all, when she was interrupted by the most unlikely source.

"Ikari-kun," it was Ayanami of all people who had spoken up, such a rare occurrence that it caught the attention of most of the chatting class. "We need to report to NERV." With that, the blue haired girl calmly stood, and made her way out of class.

Hikari blinked, not quite sure if that counted as actual interaction with others and wondered if maybe it was a sign that the girl was starting to open up to others. She had even begun to make plans to try and approach the girl when she came back when she idly turned to look towards the other pilot…

And froze with a small gasp.

Shinji was not looking at the ground. For the first time ever, he had raised his head. And he was staring directly at her and Kensuke. A second later, Kensuke seemed to realize the source of Hikari's small sound of surprise, and a strangled choking noise emerged from him too.

His eyes. Those were the only things that Hikari could focus on for a moment. They were blue, and there were premature lines around them, on much of his face she realized. But it was the intensity of the stare he was giving her, something in his gaze which set her on edge, which made her nervous, which made her wish he would just look down again….

She couldn't read it, the look in his eyes. She didn't have the range of experience to truly understand the emotion there. It was like fear, but something more. It was intense, and direct, and was that pity there too?

It only lasted a moment before Shinji seemed to realize what he was doing, and his head instantly snapped back down, resuming its usual position. Without a word of his own, he picked up his satchel and began to make his way out of the classroom and after Ayanami.

Well, Hikari noted, feeling a wave of vertigo for some reason, that's another first. Two of them, in one day. What else could happen next?

"He knows something," Kensuke's voice brought her back from her stunned state, and she glanced down to see Kensuke's gaze locked on the door that the pilots had just exited.

Hikari wanted to ask him what he meant, when she was interrupted by the sound of alarms. With a swallow, she set herself to the task of getting the rest of the class ready to evacuate to the shelter.

*Scene Break*

"Well," Misato declared, trying to maintain her enthusiasm despite the nearly overwhelming bone weary tiredness she was experiencing. "I'm glad that's over with!"

"Me too, Misato-san," Shinji admitted, and from the sound of his voice he was probably feeling about as exhausted as she was. No surprise there. The kid had had a long day, what with getting boiled alive inside of Unit One, waking from a small medically induced coma, and then having to go out and risk parboiling again. All Misato had had to do was brave endless amounts of internal politics, bureaucratic red tape, the offended pride of the military, and gather together enough construction equipment to route the entire power of Japan so that it could be harnessed for destructive purposes…

Well, when she put it that way in her head, Misato couldn't help but feel she had had the worse end of the stick.

"Well, tell you what," Misato went on, still trying to maintain a chipper attitude despite their state. "You've had a hard day today, so why don't I take over cooking tonight?" She gave his hip a playful bump with hers, causing the boy to nearly trip.

"No!" despite his unbalance the Third Child instantly brought his hands up in a defensive gesture as though to ward off something terrible. "No," he repeated again, sounding much calmer but still nervous. "I'll take care of the cooking. Why don't you go have a beer and sit down for a bit?"

Misato would have snorted, but it would have given away her game to the boy. She was well aware of what he was doing, trying to distract her with her favorite beverage in the world. She had cooked for him once before, after all. It had been cute to watch him try and make up inventive ways to avoid ever clearly identifying whether or not he liked it, but Misato was well aware of her own lack of skill in that particular arena. If she tried to insist to be the one to have the chore, she might well get treated to the sight of the mild mannered young man becoming violent in the defense of his territory.

And so she let herself get led to the table, accepting the beer that her charge supplied her with even as he began strapping on an apron to whip up something quick and simple. Misato smiled slightly at the familiarity that he displayed with her.

She had been working hard to develop it, after all.

Once Misato knew that she wouldn't be receiving any help from NERV, she had been left with the difficult task of trying to find a way to keep an eye on Shinji on her own. So far, the easiest way to do that was to simply keep him in her company as much as possible. She wasn't able to be there for him all the time, but a significantly large portion of the day ended up seeing the two in each other's company.

There were side effects to spending that much time with another person. What had started out as just a commanding officer and her troop had begun to develop into something which Misato found to most closely resemble roommates, rather than just guardian and charge. It almost reminded her of when she and Ritsuko had been rooming together. In fact, Misato thought that Ritsuko would probably get a kick out of just how similar it was.

It had taken nearly a week before Shinji began speaking up about some of her bad habits, like her letting the garbage over flow rather than take it out, or how she left her dirty clothing laying around in inappropriate places, but eventually even the reclusive boy had begun to start being assertive about her doing her share of the chores. He didn't know that she had actually been deliberately overdoing some of her bad habits, trying to get him used to speaking up in her presence, and so far she had been successful.

Misato wanted Shinji comfortable with her. If he wasn't, than he would never tell her just what it was he had been through, and she would never be able to help him.

And she did want to help him. That was another side effect of being around someone so much, after all. Either you'd start to hate them, or you'd start to like them, and Misato was definitely on the 'like' side when it came to Shinji. He had a soft spoken charm to him, his domestic nature just fitting into his character. But he was more than just a house keeper. It had taken two weeks before Shinji made his first joke at her expense, and she had been surprised by his dry wit and even delivery of his first one liner at her expense, but it had been worth it. Shinji was intelligent, gentle, and though he tended to be a bit wishy washy when he decided to put his foot down, like on her tendency to wander around the house in skimpy underwear, he could be unexpectedly firm.

It was too bad, really. If he had been a few years older, and not so obviously damaged, Misato could have seen herself letting him pick her up in a bar. Well, her picking up him, she supposed. She would definitely have had to have been the instigator if any hypothetical hook up were to occurred.

So when Shinji gently distracted her from attempting to cook, she let him. Cooking seemed to have a soothing effect on the boy, and she felt he needed it.

After all, her ability to read her roommate had been growing, and it was with these newly developed insights that she could tell that there was something bothering Shinji, something that had happened before the angel had shown up to distract them all.

"So, Shinji-kun," Misato began, casually sipping at her beer. "How was school today?" It was an educated guess, but if something had happened to her charge that was the most likely place for it.

When Shinji paused, then resumed his cooking without saying anything, Misato knew she had hit jackpot. She had to suppress a sigh though when that was accompanied by the knowledge that whatever had happened Shinji wasn't going to talk about it. She had already become familiar with his tendency to close up the moment something he didn't want to talk about came up. She kept hoping that eventually he would feel comfortable enough to talk about his past, but so far it seemed that he was going to keep up his shut book impression.

At least, that's what she thought would happen, before a tentative voice caused her to blink, whipping her head to face her young charge.

"Misato-san," Shinji was unusually quiet, even for him. "Has anything ever… happened to you?" He didn't look up from his cooking, well, he never looked up at all, but Misato could tell that he was trying to be casual about his question.

"Happened to me?" Misato repeated, though she thought she could tell what he really meant. It was hard to share things sometimes, especially personal things. If Shinji really had been stalked, or even abused, by the slender man, than there was a chance that the shame of it would be making speaking of it harder.

It was a general question. There was little in the way of hints over just what he meant by 'anything'. He could be asking about literally anything, a way to judge her response over whether or not she deserved to hear about his own experiences.

Well, Misato didn't exactly have much experience in the way of stalkers, besides that one time in her sophomore year of college, but she did have a horrible experience of her own in the past. It might not be the same as his, but at least he'd know that he wasn't the only one to have had troubles.

"Well, I saw my father die," she admitted, and despite her intention to be frank with her charge, she found to her surprise that the words were harder to voice than she had anticipated. When Shinji paused, she knew that she had his attention.

Well, it was only fair. She kept trying to get him to open up to her. Maybe if she opened up first, it would be easier for him.

"I was fourteen," she forced herself to continue, sipping at her beer as she did so. "We had never gotten along too well, my father and I, and he wanted to take me along on a dig of his so we could try spending more time together. Oh," she added, realizing that she was leaving a bit out there. "He was an archeologist. He was doing some work in Antarctica at the time.

"Even though he claimed he wanted to spend time with me, once I was there he was too busy to do anything with me at all." It surprised Misato how bitter the words sounded to her. She thought she had gotten over all this before. "However, just as I was about to throw in the towel and demand to go back to my mother, the angels attacked."

Misato studied Shinji's back, wondering how he was taking hearing all this, belatedly realizing that maybe Shinji didn't even know the truth of what happened during Second Impact, but he didn't seem confused. It looks like he really had read all the background files she had supplied for him.

"I didn't know what was happening at first," she continued slowly. "All I knew was that my father was dragging me towards an escape capsule. Right before he locked me in, I took a piece of shrapnel in the chest. It wasn't serious enough to be dangerous, but I still have the scar. Then, right as he was closing the capsule, there was a bright light, and then I was being thrown around. When the world finally stopped spinning, I managed to get the capsule open, and I saw it: the first angel."

"What was it like?" The fact that Shinji was apparently caught up enough in her story to actually ask her was reassuring to Misato. Even if she was starting to run out of beer in her can. Encouraged that she was getting through to him, she continued anyway, deeming the story more important than her drinking for now.

"It was enormous, like a giant of light," the memory used to be enough to make Misato shiver, but now it was faded, nowhere near as vivid as it used to be. Despite herself, Misato began to give a rueful smile. "That was why I decided to join NERV," she admitted, feeling like a hypocrite and a fool, but knowing she wouldn't let that stop her. "I wanted to get revenge on the angels for killing someone I never really liked at all."

Misato had never told anyone that before. Sure, there were people who knew. It was in her file, after all, and NERV was very thorough when they had been reviewing her application. But she had never actually told anyone, actually spoken the words herself. Not even to Ritsuko, or her old lover Kaji.

She never realized how much a relief it would be to say them, even if it was to her strange little subordinate and roommate.

Shinji seemed to hesitate, and Misato didn't know if her story had been enough for him to connect to her. It was probably too different from whatever he was going through for it to relate. But that didn't matter. Even if he never fully opened up to her like she just had, she realized she felt better than she had in a while after…

"I was ten when I met the slender man," Shinji's voice interrupted her own self-deprecating thoughts, and Misato blinked, once more locking her full attention on her charge.

"I was at school," Shinji continued, and slowly he continued to prepare the food, as though keeping his hands busy would distract him from his own words. "It had just gotten out for the day, and all my classmates and I were leaving, when we saw him standing at the edge of the school yard. He…" Shinji swallowed at the memory. "He said he wanted to be our friend, and that he wanted to play with us."

He paused, and Misato found herself at the edge of her seat, and even as she listened she felt a pit forming in her stomach. She could make a guess what was going to happen next, and it wasn't a good guess.

"I never had many friends at school," Shinji admitted. "I was really shy back then, and I just don't get along well with people. So when I was excited at the chance to have a friend, I didn't think much of it. Everyone else was too. He was just so…" the words choked for a moment, "I don't think anyone could resist him.

"He told us to come back later that night, and that we could all play together then," Shinji continued. "I went home, so excited. On the way back, I had to cross a bridge, and I saw a bike there. I thought it was abandoned, and I decided I'd take it with me so I could use it later that night to get back to the school quicker." His voice turned rye at that.

"It turns out the bike wasn't abandoned. My uncle called the police, and they came over to talk to me about how wrong it was to steal. I was so disappointed and angry that they wouldn't believe me when I said I thought it was abandoned, but I was even angrier about the delay. When my uncle grounded me after, I was furious about how it would keep me from going back to the school that night."

Shinji was quiet for a moment, and Misato waited. She was afraid that if she said anything, if she interrupted him at all, than he would lose his momentum and clam up again. Finally, he continued.

"I snuck out after midnight. I ran the whole way back to school. I was actually crying, because I was sure that I had missed the chance to play with him, the slender man. When I made it back to school, and it was quiet and dark, I was sure that I had missed him. Even when I broke into the gym, where he said he would be waiting for us, I was sure that he was gone, and that the other kids had gone with him. I was crying so hard that I didn't even notice at first…"

Misato almost spoke up then, almost cut him off. She could imagine what had happened. Some sicko, getting a bunch of kids alone, probably doing things to them. She began to tell him that he didn't have to go into details, all the while planning to call a child psychologist that specialized in molestation when his next words froze her to her core.

"There was blood everywhere," Shinji whispered, and he didn't even try to stop his shoulders from shaking. "All over the floor, the walls. I didn't understand what it was, or why it was there, and then I realized that something was dripping on me, and I… I looked up…"

This… Misato found that she literally could not speak at that moment. This was far worse than anything she had imagined.

"They were all dead," Shinji's voice was hollow. He didn't elaborate any further. "And that was when I realized that the slender man was still there." He was shaking so hard that he had to grab the counter top to support himself, but still Misato was frozen to the chair, staring as her charge painted a picture of carnage for her. "He was behind me. He told me to look at him. I… I was so scared that I fell on to my knees, putting both hands on my head to keep myself from looking. He told me to look, and I knew that if I did he would kill me too. He told me to look, and even though I knew what would happen, I knew that I wouldn't be able to resist. The only thing I could do was freeze, to not move at all, because if I even tried I would end up seeing him… and if I looked at him I would… he would…"

When Shinji's voice cracked, that was enough to draw Misato out of her shock. "Shinji," she snapped, shooting to her feet and nearly tossing the table in front of her aside, unmindful of her spilled beer. He was shaking so hard that she was honestly scared that he was going to hurt himself, and she had no idea what to do.

So she resorted to her usual go to when someone looked like they needed a hug: give them the damn hug.

At first Shinji didn't seem to respond as she wrapped her arms around him from behind, pulling him close to her and sinking the back of his head into her cleavage almost incidentally. Then one of his hands came up, latching onto her forearm for comfort.

"Calm down," she found herself whispering to him, trying to shush him as though he was a baby. "Breath, just take deep breaths…" It seemed to work, and though Shinji was still shaking, he at least no longer looked in danger of hurting himself anymore.

"I don't remember how long I was there," he continued, his voice still scratchy as he spoke. Misato very nearly told him he didn't have to go on, but he seemed determined to get the whole story out. "Eventually, the slender man left, but I knew he was still nearby. So I kept staring at the ground, not looking at anything, until I made it back home. My uncle was furious. I tried to tell him what had happened, but he wouldn't believe me. He just punished me more and sent me to my room. I thought that maybe if I went to sleep, it would all be a bad dream, and I would wake up in the morning and it would be over…" Shinji trailed off, and Misato thought she could understand. She had had that same wish many times after Second Impact.

"Only it wasn't a dream, and it wasn't over. The next day, the slender man came back," Shinji whispered the conclusion to his story. "And the next day. And the next. He always comes back. The only thing I can do is not look, and hope that he goes away..."

"Shinji-kun," Misato didn't know what else to say, so she just hugged him tighter. She had thought that there was something wrong, but she thought the limit of it was going to be having to use a doll to show the bad touch places or maybe getting a few x-rays for medical proof of past violence. This, this was something on a scale that she was just not prepared for, that she had no way of coping with so suddenly. "It'll be alright," she tried instead, knowing the words weren't going to be enough but not having anything else to say. As though in confirmation of her fears Shinji shook his head violently against her.

"No it won't be!" he nearly shouted, and if Misato wasn't already wound tight as a spring the sudden volume from her Shinji-kun would have shocked her. "Today at school, I heard two of my classmates…"

Misato waited as he trailed off, giving him the time he would need to gather his thoughts. At least the shaking was dying doing. He seemed much calmer now.

No, she realized after several moments of silence. It wasn't that the shaking was dying down. It was that Shinji wasn't moving. With her arms around him she could feel the absolute stillness from her charge as he went through another one of his episodes…

"No," Misato whispered, and the realization hit her like a speeding truck. "No…"

'The only thing I could do was freeze,' Shinji had said, 'to not move at all, because if I even tried I would look at him.'

"That son of a bitch is here!" Misato snapped, knowing the conclusion was illogical, but not able to overlook horrifying thought that the murderer that had been stalking her Shinji could be right outside her doorway at this very moment! There was no logical way Shinji could have known he would be here, nothing she could think of, but what if there was some sign that he knew of that she didn't that he could use to identify the presence of the slender man? He had known before, when she had went to pick him up and again when he had been recovering from the third angel.

Better safe than sorry, Misato decided, and gently pulled free of Shinji. That was the extent of her gentleness though, as she once again kicked the table out of the way as she rushed towards the door of her apartment, and the hook where she had hung her coat.

Her coat, and the shoulder harness with her gun.

She didn't know for sure if the slender man really was here. For all she knew, it could just be Shinji's imagination. He had gone through something horrible, that much was clear, and sometimes those kinds of things could leave a mark. Maybe the boy was simply hallucinating the murderer's presence, a delayed trauma that caused him to periodically imagine his tormenter.

But then again, maybe he wasn't. Misato had seen the tall foreigner twice, both times in situations he shouldn't have been present at. If there was even a chance that he was here right now, if this slender man really had tracked Shinji to her apartment, than she was going to find the twisted fucker and arrest him.

The arrest would most likely involve her gun 'accidently discharging' into several non-vital organs, and probably a few of the more important ones as well before she handed the twisted son of a bitch over for due processing.

She was at the door, fumbling to pull her gun free from the harness while giving her apartment one last look before she went checked outside when she realized that the slender man really was here.

And he was outside her apartment but not in the hallway or anything like that.

He was outside her apartment at the window of her balcony.

It was impossible. Her apartment was on the eighth floor. There should have been no way for anyone to have made it up there without her or any of the Section Two agents stationed as guards for both her and the Third Child noticing.

But right there, through the crack in her curtain, past the reflection of the rest of the room, she could see him. Thin and tall, black suit and white shirt, face concealed by the glare of her lights off the glass. The curtains were mostly closed, leaving only an inch or clearance, and she could only gape for a moment as she tried to comprehend whether it was real or just a trick of the light.

And then the slender man's head moved, a twitch like the motion of a bird, cocking to the side.

"Screw due processing," Misato declared, her mouth suddenly dry, and she raised her Beretta, took aim, and fired a bullet dead center of the slender man's chest.

The noise of the gunshot was loud, the confines of the apartment causing the sound to echo thunderously. It was loud enough to ring in her ears, a persistent repeating noise. The glass of her balcony door shattered but held, a field of fractures obscuring her view of her target. Cursing, Misato remembered that all of the glass in her apartment was bullet proof, a measure of protection against possible sniper assaults on an important NERV officer. Furiously she charged to the balcony, throwing the door open, gun already up so she could take her second shot…

And found the balcony empty, no sign of its previous occupant.

Misato gaped, unable to believe what she was seeing. He had been right there! It had only taken her a second to cross the gap, and there was no way that he should have had enough time to escape. Belatedly, she ran her eyes over the railing, looking for something to explain his sudden disappearance, but there was no sign of any rope or other implement for descending. Whipping about, she checked above, but again there was nothing.

"The hell?" she whispered. There were many things she didn't know at the moment. Shinji's story was horrifying, and though she truly believed that he believed it, she had to know how much of it was real and how much of it was affected by the boy's experience. She also didn't know who the slender man really was, or how he had managed to get so close only to disappear so completely.

But what she did know was that if Section Two didn't have a very, very, incredibly good answer to at least one of her questions, then there might still be an 'accidental discharge' or two of her weapon by the end of the night.

*Scene Break*

It had been nearly two in the morning when Shinji and Misato had returned home after the operation to destroy the fifth angel. It was nearly four in the morning by the time Section Two had finished investigating her apartment.

Those two hours had involved several disbelieving Section Two agents, who no longer had jobs, and a scathing, vulgarity ridden, and entirely terrifying dressing down from Misato which in the near future would ascend to legend among Section Two agents everywhere, a story used to haunt new recruits and bring chills to the veterans.

And once it was all over, and there was no one left in the apartment besides Misato and Shinji, Misato realized that she was shaking.

It had been nearly forty eight hours since she slept at this point, and she had been riding on adrenaline and tension for most of those hours. As she realized her own unsteadiness, she finally allowed herself to collapse into a chair, elbows finding a place on the righted table and her head sinking into her hands.

'That,' Misato realized to herself, 'had been absolutely terrifying.'

It wasn't the slender man itself which prompted the revelation to the exhausted and quivering captain. He was only a man, after all. If it hadn't been for her own safety precautions backfiring, well, he wouldn't have been a threat anymore with a bullet through the heart. Misato resolved to find some armor piercing rounds for her personal weapon later just to make sure that particular backfire never happened again.

What had scared her, what still left her shaking, was the fact that he had been there at all.

This was Misato's apartment. It was where she came back to after a hard day's work, where she relaxed with a beer in hand. It was the place she freely walked around half and occasionally completely naked in, though the latter had been less common with the addition of Shinji to the household. It was a place she was supposed to be safe in, a place she had before tonight felt was.

It wasn't just fear, which was causing Misato to shake. No, if anything, what had happened today felt more like violation to her. That, that slender man, whoever he was, had managed to find a way nearly into the sanctity of her home, had managed to frighten her Shinji without even trying while she was in the middle of comforting him, and had escaped to possibly do it again. Another chill went down her spine as she realized that even now, at this very moment, she could turn her head to the patio and its newly fixed glass and once again find herself looking at that son of a bitch.

It was unnerving, hair raising, and now that she was coming down from her adrenaline Misato actually felt physically nauseated by the encounter. She had to swallow down bile, and the real chance that she might still vomit only soured her stomach further.

And it was while those thoughts were running through her mind, when she was feeling the most unnerved and frightened that she had in nearly fourteen years, that she felt a nudge at her elbow which nearly made her jump.

"Here," Shinji told her, lightly pressing the beer against her arm as he gave her a small smile, a sad, knowing thing that looked far too old for his young features. "This should help."

Misato couldn't stop herself from gaping at her young charge, even as her body went to autopilot, cracking the tab of the offered gift and bringing it to her mouth automatically. How? How could he be standing there, giving her that smile so calmly when just hours ago there had been a murderer watching them from what was supposed to be an inviolate place?

When the answer came to her, she forgot to swallow, and the beer spilled casually down her chin and stained the tank top she had changed into freely.

Because he was used to it.

She still didn't know how much of his story was true and how much was the invention or exaggeration of the trauma he had been through. Perhaps it was all true. Misato didn't know what to believe, and truthfully if it hadn't been for the encounter on the patio she might have attributed far more of the story to the boy's unconscious mind fabricating or exaggerating events in order to deal with the traumatic true events of story. But after seeing the slender man there, Misato found herself lost as to what to believe as absolute truth.

But whatever the case was, even if the full extent of what had happened to him was less than what he believed had happened, so what? Even if this boy, this child half her age, had been imagining some of what had happened to him it was still real to his mind. It was still genuine fear, a constant and unending pressure of being hunted that he felt.

Misato realized that for four years, Shinji Ikari had been dealing with what she was going through for less than two hours.

"You are amazing," she blurted out, not even realizing she was voicing her thoughts until they were already out. She felt herself blush in honest embarrassment over her slip.

"It's just beer," Shinji blushed back, and Misato had never been so thankful to be misunderstood in her life.

Still, she couldn't block the realization of what Shinji had been dealing with for so long. He had managed to persevere beyond any reasonable level. If he was being hunted, if he looked up for even a moment, he would be killed, and so he stopped looking up. If he moved, even to try and run, then he would be killed, so he stopped moving. And if he spoke of what was happening, and here Misato felt a new sensation, one of anger for this boy's faceless uncle, then he would be punished, so he stopped speaking of it.

Alone, without any support, this weak looking child had continued to live despite the crushing weight on him. It was no wonder he already had wrinkles under his eyes. It wouldn't surprise Misato if he already had a few white hairs at this point. When faced with the realization of just what kind of strength the pilot that had come into her life truly possessed, Misato had yet another epiphany.

'Well,' Misato thought to herself, 'If only my Shinji was just four, okay, maybe two years older, I would already be out of my panties by now.'

As it was, even for her, her Shinji was just too young. But that didn't change the new respect she held for her charge.

So she came to another decision, and this one she was okay with.

"You're sleeping with me tonight," she declared, giving him a saucy wink as she leaned back, not realizing that her wet tank top only made her attempt at teasing just that much more effective.

"Misato-san!" Shinji yelped, and the fact that he could still blush after all he had been through just firmed Misato's decision in her head.

"I'll be sure to give plenty of service," she assured him, grinning like a cat.

It took a while for them to actually get to bed, and by the time Shinji finally gave in it was nearly dawn. Misato just pulled the curtains to her bedroom window closed tightly. She made sure that not even a crack was open, the memory of her patio helping her in fully blocking out the light. They did sleep together, despite Shinji's many and plentiful protests, but they were fully clothed when they did so. That wasn't what Misato was after in this encounter.

Misato was a physical person, in the end. After a night like that, she just wanted the comfort of a body next to her without any sexual connotations. And Shinji, he really did settle down easier from his nightmares if there was someone nearby to soothe him.

Despite how long the two of them had been up, Misato was awake for nearly two hours longer than her charge was. It felt good to have him nestled in her arms, innocent despite how normally this kind of position ended for Misato.

She alternated between watching him sleep and watching the door to her room for those two hours before she finally nodded off herself.

It was the first time Misato ever slept with a fully loaded gun in her hand, but even while she slept she kept it aimed towards her bedroom door. She wouldn't let anything or anyone come in here.

She had decided that she would let nothing touch her Shinji. And she would be damned if she failed at that.

She never even realized that in her own thoughts she had started to refer to him as 'her Shinji' either.

*Scene Break*

It was unusual, but for the whole school day after the fifth angel Rei Ayanami found herself thinking about something.

Normally, Rei wasn't really the type to think about anything. Maybe it was because of the strenuous drug regimen she was under per order of NERV. Maybe it was due to some quirk of her unusual ancestry. Maybe she just wasn't the type to spend much time overly contemplating things.

Maybe it was some mixture of all of that.

Whatever the case, Rei tended to drift through life, her existence nothing more than a few noticeable points throughout the day and the meaningless moments that strung them together: waking up, going to NERV, synchronizing with the dummy plug system, returning to her apartment, sleeping, and all the blank and insignificant seconds that existed between. That was the way Rei had always lived.

Thus, when Rei found herself thinking about something, anything actually, it was a little surprising to her.

'Where is pilot Ikari?' she found herself wondering. She did not look away from the window, but from the corner of her eye she kept watch on his empty chair as the school day drug by with accustomed tedium.

Rei wasn't certain what to think about the other pilot, and maybe that was why she was thinking about him at all. If she could just classify him, then she could shelve her thoughts appropriately and move on, but it seemed that pilot Ikari wouldn't be that convenient.

Still, she wondered where he was today. They had both been released at approximately the same time after the operation, so presumably they had both went to bed at similar times. Thus, pilot Ikari shouldn't be missing from his chair and consuming her thoughts inappropriately, but still, he wasn't there.

Rei found herself curious about something that only the boy could answer. It was about last night, right before their operation and about just after the successful termination of the angel.

When they had been waiting to load into their Evas, pilot Ikari had asked her why it was she piloted. When she had told him it was her connection to humanity, he had only nodded. Rei was fairly certain that he didn't intend for her to hear, but he had added his own reason to hers, under his breath.

"The Evas are the only thing that scare him." He had only muttered it, but Rei's hearing was perhaps a bit better than most other peoples. She hadn't thought much of it at the time. Back then she had been more concerned with the upcoming operation, of preparing herself for possible termination.

It was afterwards, after she had borne the brunt of the fifth angel's beam, when pilot Ikari had forced open the heated door to her plug, when he had gasped, and stood over her, an angle that had allowed her to look up and see his eyes for the first time, that she was also curious about.

"You can't give up!" he had told her, frustration making his voice high, and desperation making it fast. "You can never give up! You always have to try, you have to struggle to keep living! No matter what!"

Rei did not understand that sentiment. She was just one of many, a vessel with replacements waiting in the wing. Self-preservation wasn't a concept that she was familiar with. But the other pilot had seemed so desperate for her sake, so worried, that Rei felt she had to do something for him. So when she asked him what she should do, and he told her to smile, she had done so.

And there was one more thing she had been uncertain about, one more thing she felt she needed to ask pilot Ikari about.

When she had smiled, when her eyes had slipped past his form only briefly in response to her strange response to her own features, she had seen a man standing behind her fellow pilot, a man that Rei did not know but stood near anyway.

Rei found, with as much surprise as her current curiosity towards pilot Ikair brought, that she wanted to know who the tall, slender man was.

When the school day ended, and she made her way past the Class Rep with her usual indifference towards the twin tailed girls attempts at conversation, she discovered that she would have the chance to get some of her questions answered.

The slender man was waiting for her, outside the gates of the school.

If Rei had been normal, she would not have been able to approach him as she did. She would have blinked at some point, turned away for some reason or other, been distracted and lost sight of him. But Rei wasn't normal, and with unflinching observation she approached the slender man.

The two stood silently, face to face. Rei could see all of him, and despite the true nature of his features, she still remained unflinching. Rei had seen far worse in her time, after all.

Finally, the slender man held one arm out to her, and though he didn't speak, Rei heard the silent invitation.

'Come play with me', the slender man told her without words.

Rei could not resist the voiceless imperative, even if she would have wanted to. It was more than an invitation, it was an order, a cajoling directive, an unassailable mandate. Rei had been raised on orders, and obedience to them was part of her very nature. So she took the slender man's hand without hesitation.

After all, Rei still wanted some answers about who he was. And the quickest way to those answers was to follow him.

They traveled together as far as a park. There, Rei got her answers.

Rei Ayanami didn't have last thoughts. She wasn't the type to think too much, and for someone like her what she did think would not qualify as 'last'. Rei Ayanami was replaceable, after all.

But the Second Ayanami, distinct in her number rather than her being, her last thoughts were of her fellow pilot's eyes. She understood them now.


	4. Chapter 4

Don't Look

_Author's Notes: Brief change in plans. This and the next chapter were originally supposed to be one chapter, but I decided to go ahead and keep the chapters short so I could update faster. Plus, this sets the stage for the last chapter, arranging the last bit of intrigue I need to set the conclusion into motion, and then end it all with a nice little epilogue a bit after._

_*Bit of a SPOILER, so come back in a bit*_

_Points to note, especially this one: Did you really think that Shinji was the only one the Slender Man was there for? I wanted the most chilling aspect of this chapter to be that Shinji really wasn't important. That he holds no particular significance in the Slender Man's eyes, and that everything that has been done to Shinji was done simply because it is the Slender Man's nature to do so. _

_Somehow, to me it's just far more shiver inducing to think that everything that happened to Shinji was just trivial and not the result of personal malice. That kind of impersonal pain is so much worse than deliberate atavism. _

_*End SPOILER*_

_So, enjoy the chapter where things start coming to a head, an innocent girl is slaughtered for the reader's amusement, and Gendo STILL DOESN'T GET IT, despite the fact that he really does have some good points._

_Enjoy, dear reader._

_Gabriel Blessing._

*Story Start*

It had been three days since Shinji's dramatic revelation, and by this point even Misato had to admit that maybe she was going a little overboard.

Only a little though.

"Misato-san," Shinji mumbled, his voice muffled due to his position. "I really need to get up and start breakfast."

"Five more minutes," the older woman mumbled sleepily, trying to silence the boy through use of two large pillow like objects that she was currently squashing his head into.

"Misato-san!" this time Shinji's yelp was louder, and much more nervous. "This is very inappropriate!"

"Tickles," Misato muttered in response, sleepily opening her eyes to be greeted by the sight of her young charge blushing so hard that even his ears were changing color. Despite her sleepiness, Misato grinned down at her Shinji who was firmly buried into the skimpy and noticeably disheveled yellow tank top she liked to use as sleepwear. Misato noticed almost idly that she had once more managed to get herself all wrapped up around her sleeping partner, a position which would have been innocent if she had a teddy bear and indecent if whoever she was sleeping with was naked and she was the same.

As it was, it probably was a bit indecent, but now it fell more on the 'comically embarrassing to her Shinji' then 'hot and raunchy' like it could have been if they were wearing less.

"Good morning, Shin-chan!" Misato chirped, leering at her roommate. "Enjoying the service?" she prompted him, giving him a playful leer and was treated to the sight of her Shinji turning so red he was in danger of spontaneous combustion.

"N-No!" he hurriedly tried to pull away, and this time Misato relaxed the arms she had around him and let him claim his space. "I-it's not like that, Misato-san! I swear, I just woke up like…"

"Like what?" Misato prompted, giving him a knowing look as she laid back, putting her hands behind her head and beneath her pillow as she adopted a sultry pose. Shinji nearly bit his tongue as he frantically crab walked away, and if he wasn't already firmly with his head down Misato just knew he would be staring.

"I need to start breakfast!" Shinji gave in to full retreat, regaining his footing, and waving his hands defensively in front of him as he awkwardly backed out of her room. Misato took sight of his unusual walking style and gave a wolf whistle, causing the boy to brighten even more.

It was morning, and Shinji was a boy after all. A boy in the midst of the ravages of puberty and who had just woken up next to a total babe like her. Misato decided to spare him any more embarrassment and let him escape without any more ribald comments.

The moment the door to her room shut, the smile disappeared from her face. Beneath the pillow she had tucked it under to keep it out of Shinji's sight, the hand holding the gun relaxed slightly.

There had been another episode last night. It had been late, and she had nearly missed it, but even while he was asleep Shinji had frozen, and it had only been the fact that the boy had been latched onto her at the time that had kept Misato from getting up and searching her apartment.

Three days now, and during that time there had been five of these moments, moments where either Shinji's stress had caught up with him and made him hallucinate or the slender man really had come a calling.

Misato found this to be absolutely infuriating, frustrating, and more than a little unnerving to tell the truth. Just how the hell had her Shinji managed to deal with something like this for so long by himself?

Well, Misato knew how she personally was dealing with it. She had made it a point to always try and keep Shinji nearby when she was trying to get him to open up to her. Now that he had though, Misato found herself loathe to let the boy out of her sight, even for a moment.

In the last three days she had personally driven Shinji to school, and picked him up afterwards as well. She had made sure that he accompanied her back to NERV once the school day was finished, and the sight of him doing his homework at a desk she had set up for him in her office was starting to draw attention from some of her coworkers. So far the general consensus was seeing both of them in the same position grumbling at their paperwork was comical.

Misato didn't find it that freaking funny herself.

So far the only times Misato really let Shinji be by himself resolved around bathroom issues and while he was in his Eva. On occasion he would be able change by himself, but not when Misato could help it.

She knew she was being ridiculous. She knew that her Shinji had been fine on his own for years, and that she didn't need to be quite so overbearing in keeping him around all the time. She knew she was being silly, and was quite possibly crossing the line between being protective and being overbearing.

The thing was, for all his protests about things like her being around while he was changing or her tendency to cuddle while they were sleeping, not once had Shinji asked her to give him space. If anything, he actually seemed relieved that she was putting so much effort into being nearby. Hell, the first episode he had after his confession, when she had tried to comfort him with a hug, he had actually hugged her back, and she hadn't imagined his whispered thanks.

The fact that her Shinji was so genuinely relieved to have someone trying to help him, even if they were being ridiculously intrusive about it, was enough to set Misato's teeth on edge. She wasn't certain if she found his reaction to be heartbreaking or infuriating.

She had already added Shinji's uncle to the list of people she would have to check later if she had the authority to shoot. Several Section Two agents were already on the list, as were a few coworkers.

Gendo's name had been on it for a bit too, before she realized that she would probably never have the authority to shoot him, so he was moved to the list of people she would really like to shoot but would probably get in trouble for.

Misato finally pulled herself out of bed as well, checking to make sure the safety of her weapon was on, before she started tugging her sleep clothes back into order. As she did so, she took a glance away, towards a corner of her room high on a dresser where she had stored a large collection of papers, as well as a laptop which was still displaying a busy signal, and had most likely been all night.

She was almost ashamed for a moment that she was so casually making use of Shinji's trauma, but she had already discovered that if there was anything she didn't want her Shinji to come across, the best place to store it was above his sight line.

And she definitely didn't want Shinji to find out about this, not right away at least.

She tugged down one of the papers, an old and yellowed genuinely printed newspaper. Newspapers weren't exactly common these days. Most people just used their phones or laptops to check out the happenings of the world around them. Besides that, paper itself was generally frowned upon by society. After Second Impact there had been some concern that the loss of so much of the world's forests would have an impact on the oxygen levels, but the corresponding reduction in human population had been enough to lay that fear to rest. There was still a general movement among the populace to go green these days though.

It was partly because of that general consensus, as well as just due to the trickiness of finding it, but Misato could be very, very determined when she wanted to. It had only taken her eighteen hours to track down this gem.

'Thirteen dead in school massacre,' the headline of the old newspaper proclaimed. Misato let her eyes trace over it again, taking in the article for what must have been the hundredth time since she had managed to locate it.

It was the only instance she had managed to find that even acknowledged the deaths occurred.

Online searches, browsing the newspaper's website for past issues, police reports, medical reports, anything and everything else she had thought to search through, none of them had any mention of the incident. Even looking into the families of the children who had been murdered had revealed nothing besides a whole lot of transfers to hard to access areas. If it hadn't been for this little bit of hard evidence, Misato would have had nothing to work with as she tried to track down the truth of what Shinji had told her.

There still would have been evidence, like the closing of the school and the disappearance of his classmates, but that wouldn't have been enough. Even Misato would have had no choice to admit that those little tidbits would be circumstantial at best.

But this… This was proof that the story Shinji had told her was true. More than that, it was proof that someone out there didn't want the story getting out.

Misato took a second to check the status screen on her laptop. It had been searching all night, but NERV's computers had a lot of files, and Misato had to admit her search parameters were a little vague. She had a lot of clearance due to her position as Captain, so it would most likely take a while longer before it was completed.

There weren't a lot of organizations capable of covering up something so gruesome, after all. And she just happened to work for one of them. It was a pretty vague search right now, and there were a lot of files that she was aware she wouldn't have access to. This was just an opening move, in the end.

If she didn't have any luck here, well, it might be tricky getting Shinji into those access tunnels with her when she went to physically hack NERV's mainframes, but she was definitely not letting him out of her sight.

Putting on a happy smile, Misato carefully tucked her weapon into her brief shorts, having a little trouble getting it fully concealed in a fashion which didn't feel vaguely kinky, but she managed to get it out of sight until she could get her jacket and holster back on.

"Shinji-kun!" Misato called cheerfully as she rejoined her charge in the kitchen. "Beer me!"

*Scene Break*

"This is unacceptable," Gendo noted, and if he had been a more emotional man Ritsuko was fairly certain that he would be growling at the moment. Even while he was in his usual position, even with his face mostly concealed, even though he was seated in calm fashion, Ritsuko could tell.

Gendo was furious.

"Sir," she began, the blonde uncertain if she should be trying to calm him down or running for cover. "Section Two has been doing everything they can, but Tokyo Three is a large city, and there are many places that Ayanami could have been taken. There is simply too much ground to cover for the agents to locate her swiftly…"

"Section Two," Fuyutsuki noted, a touch of dry humor in his voice, "is full of 'incompetent retards who would be incapable of finding their asses with both hands, a map, compass, and a GPS. In the end, they would end up stumbling upon their own asses mainly because it would have gotten so fat because all they do is sit around on it'."

"Ah," Ritsuko found herself wincing, though as more and more time went on she also found herself agreeing with the summation. "Captain Katsuragi certainly has a way with words," she offered by way of apology for her friend. The phone call that Misato had given the aforementioned section a few nights ago was already making its way around the office, though precisely where the recording had come from was anyone's guess at this point. Section Two certainly hadn't been the ones to volunteer it.

"The Captain's eloquence only continues to further my confidence in her," Gendo noted, and if Ritsuko wasn't certain that Gendo didn't have a sense of humor, she would have thought he was joking. "However, excuses are not acceptable. Ayanami is essential to both the defense of Tokyo Three and the completion of Instrumentality. Her absence is delaying multiple vital projects indefinitely. She will be found, or I will allow Captain Katsuragi to make good on her threats."

"Ah," again Fuyutsuki seemed amused. "You mean that you will allow her to 'duct tape those incompetent fools to a leaking buoy, staple their pink slips to their balls, and then leave them to slowly sink in shark infested waters'?"

"NERV's separation packet includes a great deal of paperwork," Gendo confirmed. "The blood loss from the staples would most certainly attract the sharks."

Again, Ritsuko felt vertigo as she tried to decide if this was a sign of genuine humor, or if Gendo was really being serious about the creative deaths of some of the more incompetent members of his staff.

Misato's creativity aside, Ritsuko had another reason for requesting this meeting with her commander. Considering his present state, she was genuinely worried about how he was going to respond.

"Sir," she began swallowing briefly as she prepared to take the plunge. "Locating Ayanami is no longer necessary."

"Explain," Gendo's blunt order made her shiver. She couldn't see his eyes behind the glare of his glasses, but she just knew he was staring at her with laser focus.

"This morning," Ritsuko began, "in order to confirm the continued safety of Ayanami, I attempted activation of one of the clones." She swallowed again. "The third is currently in the middle of post activation synchronization."

Silence greeted Ritsuko's proclamation. If the second Ayanami was still alive, then there would have been no way that a third would have activated. There was only one soul to be shared among the clones. The fact that a clone had activated could only mean one thing:

Rei Ayanami had been killed.

It was times like this that Ritsuko was slightly relieved the commander was so unflappable. It meant she would not be receiving a loud and violent dressing down or being summarily shot for being the bearer of bad news was very unlikely.

Then again, the sheer intensity of the man's cold fury was enough to make her almost wish for that abrupt bullet.

"Send for Captain Katsuragi," was his eventual order. Ritsuko fled the room immediately to carry out the order, desperate to be away from the man's presence.

*Scene Break*

"You ready for school, Shin-chan?" Misato called from her room where she was changing into her work clothes. She had taken to changing at the last minute, mostly so she could keep teasing Shinji with her sleep clothes. She wasn't sure if it was working, but she was willing to go above and beyond when it came to distracting her Shinji from the horrors of his life.

Most people would call her constant teasing sexual harassment, but Misato preferred to think of it as 'service'.

"Almost, Misato-san," the boy called back from where he was cleaning up the kitchen. Misato thought that would be the end of their brief conversation, but she perked when he continued a moment later. "Uh, this time, could you please be a bit more careful while driving?"

Misato grinned again, nodding in confirmation of yet another success. She was aware that she tended to be rather loose with most traffic laws, and that some people might even call her driving 'insane', but it looked like Shinji was coming around! Why, last time she had only missed that truck she had been cutting off by six inches!

Misato was in the middle of planning to make the distance of the next vehicle she cut off half that amount, when her phone rang. Cursing at the delay, she answered it.

"Misato-san?" Shinji called again from the kitchen, wondering what the delay with his guardian was. When she entered the kitchen a moment later, he paused.

Shinji wasn't very good at reading facial features, mostly since he very rarely saw other people's faces. However, he had gotten quite good at reading a person's mood through other ways, like how they walked or the tone of her voice. Judging from the determined and heavy lengths of her stride, he could tell that something had affected his guardian's mood.

"Shinji-kun," Misato began, looking down at her charge hesitantly. "Something has come up at NERV," she finally explained. "They need me there right away. It looks like I won't be able to drive you to school today."

"Oh," Shinji murmured, disappointed. Misato grimaced, though she took his regret positively. If he was disappointed at the lack of routine, it definitely meant that he wasn't uncomfortable with her smothering. "That's fine, Misato-san," Shinji seemed to realize that he was being obvious, and hurried to try and reassure her. "I can walk just fine."

"Shinji," Misato began, taking in his attempt at a reassuring smile, offset by the tension that had settled on his shoulder. Finally, she made a decision about something which she had been considering for the last few days. "Here," she declared, making her move.

"Misato-san?" Shinji began, confused by what she was planning before he started slightly as she reached around his neck. For a moment, he thought she was going to give him another hug, and he felt a blush starting, but that changed when rather than being smothered by Misato's 'motherly attributes' he instead felt something slightly heavy settle around his neck. Since he was already looking down, it was easy for him to identify what the weight was.

"Misato-san," he began hesitantly, one hand coming up to brush against the silver cross that was now resting on his chest. "But, isn't this…"

"It was my father's once," she admitted, also looking at the cross. "He gave it to me right before the second impact. Sometimes," she rubbed the back of her head, feeling somewhat foolish at what she was about to confess, "sometimes I think it's the only reason I survived."

It was a silly superstition. God was in his heaven, after all. He didn't have much to do with the world these days, at least Misato thought so.

Still, it was a superstition she couldn't quite shake. Besides, there was another reason that Misato wanted Shinji to have her cross. She had been hesitating to do it, but in the end decided that she would give Shinji every chance she could, even if it meant doing something like this.

Shinji's head twitched, and Misato scowled as she watched as the boy tried to do something as normal as looking up, only to fail. It just wasn't right that he had to bear such a burden.

"M-Misato-san," Shinji began, stuttering slightly as he understood what she was doing. "But this, I can't…"

"Yes, you can, Shinji-kun," she told him, and since her hands were already resting near his shoulders she decided to cut off his protest by inducing that hug he had been nervous about earlier.

"Misato-san!" Shinji protested the skinship, but despite his verbal outrage, Misato was startled when his own arms came up to hesitantly hug her back. She found, much to her astonishment, that she was also blushing at the movement. It was the third time that Shinji had ever responded with skinship of his own, the first being the night three days ago when he had latched onto her arm in desperation. This, this was much more significant somehow, that he was comfortable enough with her to not fear her touch, and to even return it willingly.

"Oh!" she declared, feeling a little flustered and embarrassed at her own embarrassment. "Shin-chan is quite the charmer!"

"Misato-san," Shinji's protest was weak and with a touch of resignation, but he blushed anyway.

It was hard, but Misato finally pulled away from her charge. "Well," she began, leading the boy to the door as they prepared to set about their day. "I'm sure whatever is happening at NERV shouldn't take all day. I'll be there to pick you up tonight, alright Shin-chan?"

After all, what was the worst that it could be? Probably just another angel attack.

*Scene Break*

"I'm sorry," Misato began, unable to properly understand what she had just been told. "Could you repeat that, sir?"

"The First Child was assaulted the night before," Gendo said again, not seeming upset by Misato's request. "Though she survived the encounter, she is currently in the hospital recovering from her injuries."

Ritsuko nodded, before speaking up to add her own lies to the deception. It had been decided that it would be simpler reintegrate the third Ayanami into society by perpetuating a fiction of her having undergone an attack. Any discrepancies in personality or memories could be explained away as reaction to the trauma, and the truth of Ayanami's condition could be better concealed.

"She is currently under sedation, but should be recovered enough from her experience to resume her duties in a day or two," the doctor announced, and Misato gave her a quick look as she tried to read how her friend was taking the news. Not very well, Ritsuko noted with some alarm. Misato had two kinds of anger: the first was loud, vulgar swearing, accompanied at times by some rather creative threats. It was the anger that Section Two was becoming well acquainted with in the last few days.

Right now, this was Misato's second kind of anger. The kind where her expression shut down, and she clammed up tight, her body tense. Ritsuko hadn't seen Misato this angry often, but she was well aware of just how vicious her friend could get when her anger went cold like that.

"Sir, I fail to see how this is a concern of NERV," Misato stated clearly and politely. Ritsuko started, staring in shock as Misato casually dismissed an assault on one of the pilots. Even Gendo seemed surprised by the reaction, and Ritsuko was able to make out his eyebrows narrowing just above his glasses.

"Explain yourself, Captain," the commander ordered.

"A solitary incident of assault, while regrettable, does not necessarily require a response from NERV," Misato coolly stated. "There is no evidence of this being a premeditated assault, and while unfortunate, events like these happen on occasion. Does NERV really have the resources to waste on rampant paranoia?"

Ritsuko winced, and despite herself she had to give Misato points for the sheer gall of throwing Gendo's words directly back into his face, and even more points for managing to do it with such poise.

Gendo, on the other hand, did not seem nearly as amused by Misato's choice of words. Ritsuko was certain that behind those folded hands of his he was clenching his teeth. Ritsuko had a very real fear that both the commander and her friend were about to do or say things which could cause things to go very poorly for Misato in the future.

Fortunately, it seemed that Fuyutsuki also could read the lay of the land. And also, though far less fortunate, it seemed the old professor had a way of playing peace maker as well.

"This is not an isolated incident," the older man noted, and it was only practice that let Ritsuko see the way Misato's lips twitched into a smile as she waited for Fuyutsuki's next words, which would no doubt be a validation of her own previous worries.

Instead, the professor's next statement only made her stiffen in shock.

"Including Rei, there have so far been twenty six incidents involving children between the ages of five and sixteen in the past three months," Fuyutsuki was almost diffident as he so casually admitted the statistic. "There have been twenty one reported disappearances, as well as five assaults, all of which had the assaulted child also disappearing within several days of the initial incident."

"Twenty six?" Ritsuko blurted out in surprise. Not even SHE had known that! Just what the hell was going on here?

"So far, among the children that managed to evade the initial assault, the description of the assailant has remained consistent," Fuyutsuki continued. Even as he opened his mouth, Misato interrupted.

"Tall, slender, wearing a dark suit and white shirt, extremely persuasive upon first encounter, and later exhibiting sadistic tendencies upon future encounters," Misato cut the professor off, and this time Ritsuko spun to gawk at her companion as she continued to detail information about attacks that the head of the Science division hadn't even known occurred. Even Fuyutsuki seemed taken aback at how thorough Misato was being. "Displays traits of someone with extensive military training, including evasion of known surveillance and advanced infiltration skills. Possibly former military, though perhaps these abilities have been developed over time during the course of his criminal history."

Ritsuko wasn't shocked when even Gendo seemed surprised by just how much information Misato had already gathered on what had been until today an unknown entity. She could tell by the way the commander's fingers relaxed before resuming their previous tension.

"Your preparation seems to be quite thorough," Gendo noted. It was quite possibly the closest thing to a complement that Ritsuko had ever heard that man voice.

"Thank you, sir." Misato seemed to have regained some of her professionalism, and did not say anything further. Ritsuko was thankful enough for that, and apparently so was Gendo as he gave a small, almost indistinguishable nod.

"Previously, this had remained a matter for the civil authorities," the commander continued, his voice soft but firm. "Tokyo Three is a large city, and NERV does not have the resources to involve itself in every criminal case that occurs within its borders." He shifted, and his glasses flashed. "That ends the moment that a pilot's safety is violated. NERV will now be assuming full authority over this investigation. The resources of Tokyo Three's police force, all spare personnel from Section Two, and limited access to the Magi will be dedicated to the apprehension of the perpetrator."

Even Ritsuko couldn't help but be a little overwhelmed by just how far Gendo was going with this. This…

With this kind of resources there was no place that this 'slender man' could go. The Magi quite literally governed Tokyo Three. They were involved with every aspect of its operation, from government even to the scheduling of the traffic lights. They could have access to nearly any camera, any recording device in the city, and most of that access would even be legal too.

"Captain Katsuragi," Gendo's voice remained calm and commanding. "You will be in charge of apprehending the responsible parties. If captured, they will be remanded to NERV's security in order to be interrogated. If they resist arrest, then there will be no disciplinary response to their deaths. Understood, Captain?"

"Yes, sir!" Misato's voice was clear and fast, and Ritsuko could again tell just how pleased her longtime friend was with these orders. The blonde had to give Gendo this much: even though he preferred using the stick, when he had to offer a carrot it was a pretty tasty carrot. This was exactly what Misato had been asking for ever since suspicions regarding the Third Child had been raised. Gendo was in affect giving her carte blanche to use whatever force necessary to apprehend the slender man.

"Captain," Gendo continued, and his voice was very, very firm, panty wetting firm in Ritsuko's humble opinion at the moment, "the target WILL resist arrest. Am I clear?"

"Yes, sir!" Misato couldn't quite hold back the fierce, tooth bearing grin at the statement. Ritsuko could understand why. Gendo wasn't being too subtle about his intention. He didn't want a prisoner. He wanted a corpse. And that right there, that was probably the first time Ritsuko ever saw the commander and her friend in full agreement on something.

When Gendo offered a carrot, he apparently made damn sure it was a very tempting carrot.

"Dismissed, Captain," Gendo's words were like a gunshot to Misato, as she turned and nearly raced towards the exit of the office. The door slamming behind her was also reminiscent of a fire arm.

"The poor fool won't last a day," Ritsuko finally noted, giving her honest opinion on the slender man's survival time line at that point. Softly, Fuyutsuki chuckled at her blunt summation of Misato's target. Still, Ritsuko couldn't help but feel curious. "Sir," she began, eying Gendo carefully. "Does this mean that your initial assessment of the situation was in error?"

She didn't ask if he was wrong. She didn't know how he'd respond to that, and considering how furious he had been earlier, she really didn't want to push any buttons right now.

"Not at all," Gendo murmured, eyes locked on the door Misato had exited from. "If anything, it simply confirms my earlier summation."

"What do you mean, sir?" Ritsuko asked, honestly not understanding what the commander was implying.

"The Marduk Institution," Fuyutsuki was the one who gave her the answer, and Ritsuko felt like a fool for not having seen it before.

The Marduk Institution, the organization responsible for the Marduk report which selected potential candidates for piloting the Evangelions.

The institution was a fake, a list of shell companies that NERV owned, and it was used to cover the fact that NERV had already identified a great number of potential candidates.

In fact, most of the students in most of the schools of Tokyo Three had the potential to pilot the Evangelions. NERV had arranged it that way. Much of the personnel they had hired over the years had less to do with the skills of the actual employees, and more to do with the potential of their offspring.

All of Tokyo Three's schooling system was a holding pen for those who might be needed to pilot the Evangelion. And now someone was out there culling the herd, so to speak.

"I… I see," Ritsuko finally managed to stammer out.

And she did see. She saw a lot.

She saw how Gendo had deliberately been ignoring the attacks on innocent children, letting them be taken as he tried to measure the intent of his possible enemies. She saw how he had let his own son suffer under the same threat as well; it couldn't have been coincidence that Misato had already known so much about the attacker. Misato had to have got the information from somewhere, and the only possible source she could have received it from was none other than Shinji Ikari, whom apparently had already had an encounter with this brutal threat.

She saw how Gendo didn't seem to care one bit about the suffering of others, how surely he used it to help further his own agenda, manipulating even Misato's obvious affection for her charge, his son, to help further his goals.

And God help her, she couldn't decide if she found the man in front of her infinitely repulsive or utterly irresistible at that moment.

*Scene Break*

On the outside, Misato was the picture of professional albeit hurried pose as she made her way at a pace just below 'slow jog' towards her office to begin her hunt.

On the inside, Misato was furiously lashing out at the world around her, and being particularly inventive with the curses she employed.

Three months! Three whole months there had been innocent children disappearing, most likely being murdered if they truly were related to the slender man. And so many! Twenty six incidents in just about ninety days. That was nearly one every three day!

And the entire time, NERV had known!

It was only because it was Ayanami that had been assaulted that was spurring the powerful organization to move. Misato tried not to play favorites, tried not to buy into office gossip, but never before today had she considered Ayanami's nickname of 'Commander's Pet' as anything but a baseless rumor.

But the fact that it wasn't until she had been attacked that an immediate response had been generated, whereas the commander's own son, her Shinji, had been forced to deal with the attacker for years was making it hard for her not to blame the quiet First Child.

'No,' Misato forced herself to shake her head. 'Don't think about that. Focus on the important things!'

Like how NERV was hiding things from her.

There was no way so many missing children could have happened without SOMEONE having noticed before. The cops, the reporters, hell, even the PTA must have heard something, must have had made the connection at some point. Yet despite that, there had been no general outcry, no news reporting on what was almost certainly a child abductor and serial killer being on the loose. There should have been something, from anyone, getting the news of what was going on out there!

And instead, there had been nothing. That just didn't happen. That just didn't happen without a reason.

Only NERV, most likely through the use of the Magi, could possibly have been keeping something of this scale under wraps. Misato didn't know why, couldn't see any possible reason to not see to the safety of the children of Tokyo Three, but that didn't change the fact that NERV MUST have been the ones covering this up.

A cover up, just like what had happened in Shinji's old school four years ago.

Misato believed in coincidences. Sometimes things just happened, and no matter how much you might want there to be some underlying cause to explain it, some connection to some other event which might have been a forewarning if only enough information had been known, sometimes things just happened all on their own.

However, Misato very sincerely doubted that this was one of those coincidences.

She didn't know why NERV would possibly cover something like this up. It had nothing to do with the angels, nothing to do with guarding humanity. But she also knew that NERV wouldn't do something like this without a reason, no matter how closely guarded a secret that reason was.

And until Misato knew that reason, there was just no way she could fully trust the very organization she herself worked for.

Paranoia aside, Misato picked up her pace just a little. There would be time for trying to uncover the mysteries that lay beneath the surface of her organization.

For now, she had a sicko to catch. Catch with extreme, and most certainly lethal prejudice.

*Scene Break*

Nozomi Horaki was a bright girl. Among the families that lived in the nearby apartment complexes and houses around the Horaki household she was the apple of everyone's eyes, the adorable little darling that was everyone's surrogate daughter or little sister.

Before her mother had died, she had always told Nozomi to be that way. Among a people as social as the Japanese, it was important to be well liked. In many ways, it was a safety measure for the children themselves. If everyone in the neighborhood liked the child, than there were just that many more guardians to intervene if the child was ever in trouble.

But even with this long standing tradition, Nozomi herself was particularly adorable. With her hair pulled up in little pigtails, uneven because she insisted that she did them herself just like her big sister, the sight of the first grader was enough to cause just about any witness of her adorability to coo at her presence. Thanks to this, Nozomi always found herself with plenty of attention, attention she thrived on.

Nozomi loved friends. She loved playing with other children her own age, sometimes even dragging nearby adults in amidst helpless laughter as they caved to her childish innocence.

And so, when Nozomi finished the trip to school with the lunchbox prepared by her middle sister clutched firmly to her tiny chest, she was especially excited at the time.

Today she had made a new friend! He was tall and he looked funny, and he had a weird voice, but a friend was a friend, and thus the little things could be ignored by the young girl.

They had met on the way to school. He had been shy, hiding in the alley like that, but once Nozomi saw him he started talking to her. He told her that he wanted to play with her, a wonderful game just for her. He told her he would come for her later, and that if she wanted she could bring her other friends to join in on the game.

And so, when recess came unexpectedly early as the teachers were called into a conference with a nice policeman that had shown up, Nozomi had whispered excitedly to her other friends to come with her.

They met Nozomi's new friend at the back of school. Instantly, Nozomi knew that they all like him as much as she did, and Nozomi's beaming smile at the sight of all her friends being friends with each other was like the sun coming out from behind a cloud.

Happily, joyfully, Nozomi and her friends followed their new friend as he led them away to play.

Nozomi's last thoughts were that she had to be strong. She didn't like this game that her new friend was playing, but since it was his favorite, she'd do it for him.


	5. Chapter 5

Don't Look

_Author's Notes: Aaaaand surprise! I know I originally said I wanted to get his chapter published on the 31st, but here I was, with nothing to do all day and the final confrontation burning in my mind, so here you go. The epilogue isn't finished yet, but it will be in time for my deadline, and I like the idea of this being fresh in the reader's minds, the suspense over what happened after the conclusion lingering, and thus here we are._

_Anyway, yeah, this has a lot of spoilers, so go ahead and skip forward right after the _

_*SPOILER WARNINGS*_

_And thus it all comes together. All the seemingly mindless deaths at the ends of the previous chapters combine, in hopefully an unexpected yet coherent way, to bring this story to its climax. Touji to get Hikari and Kensuke interested, Rei to get NERV moving, and Nozomi in order to give Hikari and Kensuke the impetuous they needed to get the plot rolling. I wanted a way to get Shinji away from NERV, to get him alone, a way to make a final confrontation away from any sort of help or chance of rescue._

_Hopefully, that's the way it came out, and the OOC moments for the two poor school kids are believable from the stress of their experiences._

_Next, the final fight between Misato and Slender Man. _

_Misato is a badass. She crossed an entire base during an invasion, rescued Shinji from being executed by shooting his captives in their heads at a dead spring from across the hallway, and than fought her way with him all the way back to his Eva. _

_That was what I was aiming for here. Not Misato the drunken slut puppy and wannabe momma that pops up so much. Misato the hardcore killer._

_And I wanted that to not be enough._

_I wanted the final confrontation between Shinji, Misato, and Slender Man to be something close, something that could go either way, no foregone conclusion to ruin the suspense. I wanted it to be tense, something on the edge of the seat. I hope that's what I got here, but again, expectations and reality can vary._

_As for the Slender Man, I haven't really seen much of his actual attacks on youtube, though people keep recommending a certain group for more mythos about him. In the end, I decided to work with what I know, mostly because of time constraints in getting this out on deadlines and if I started reading too much into him it would take forever and put me over. _

_The dissection of his victims, the wrapping of the organs, the sound of laughter before he attacks, and his suspending himself from his own limbs are all based around some of the easier to find reports about Slender Man on youtube, though I did take some liberties here and there. Call it artistic license, and hopefully you can roll with it._

_And also, yeah. Misato/Shinji. NGE OTP._

_I said it._

_*END SPOILER*_

_So. There you go folks. Hopefully you'll get a kick out of it._

_As always, enjoy._

_Gabriel Blessing._

*Story Start*

"I told you it was a conspiracy!" Kensuke whispered, his grin nearly manic as he exalted at Hikari. "I told you! I was right!"

"Aida-kun," Hikari began, sighing at her somewhat friend's exuberance. "You thought it was an agent for a rival organization of NERV, trying to find pilots for their competing giant robots. You were about to go out and start looking for recruiters! You would have gotten yourself kidnapped too," Hikari's glare at her classmate was so stern it made even the boy cringe despite his excitement. "If anything, I was right about it being a child abductor!"

"Well, yeah," Kensuke glanced away sheepishly, before he recovered and turned back so he could thrust a mop handle at the class rep. "But I was right about the man! He exactly matches the description the officer gave!"

"Well, yes," Hikari allowed Kensuke that much at least. She glanced around the classroom, empty except for them and the one other student that had been on duty for classroom clean up, Shinji Ikari. Shinji was on the other side of the room from the two, quietly cleaning the black board. At first Hikari had worried that the strange boy would end up missing spots, seeing as he never looked up to check his work, but Hikari realized that the boy was working with quiet efficiency, despite the fact that he never so much as glanced at the blackboard.

"I knew that the rumors had to be true!" Kensuke was nearly euphoric as he stuck the mop back in the handheld bucket that was filled with rapidly dirtying water. Hikari sighed again, and turned back to her broom.

Of the two of them, she felt that only she was displaying the proper amount of worry at the news.

It had been around noon when regular classes had been interrupted by an unscheduled school assembly. When the students had gathered it had been to find several grim faced teachers and police officers waiting for them. Hikari had been worried at the sight, and that worry had only been concerned when the police officers gave them a warning, stating that there had been several cases of missing children all associated with the same culprit. Until the kidnapper was caught, they would be several new rules, such as children not being allowed to leave the school premises during school hours, teachers or officers accompanying children to the nearby train station, cancellation of after hour activities, and various other guidelines that would be enacted until the perpetrator was apprehended.

It had been a scary and sobering presentation, and Hikari had left it thoroughly cowed. It was a sentiment that most of the students had been feeling.

Except for Kensuke, apparently. He was the only one who found the news exciting in a way which might vaguely be construed as positive.

The rest of the day had gone by in a blur to the class rep, but even with her worry it didn't change the fact that homework had to be assigned, and class rooms had to be cleaned. Thus, as scheduled, the three of them had had to stay late, even as the rest of the students were escorted off the campus by whichever adult was responsible for them.

"Now that they're finally doing something about it, it's only a matter of time until they find Touji," Kensuke continued, and Hikari winced at the way the otaku still refused to believe that anything bad had happened to his friend. Hikari was finding his faith to be the only bit of optimism that she still held for her crush. The other boy had been missing for over two weeks now. Hikari wasn't certain what might have happened to the other boy, but she could only hope that Kensuke was right and he would be back soon, healthy and safe.

Maybe if he did return, she could see about those lunchboxes for him, maybe as a way to help him get over the incident…

She was pulled out of her thoughts by a ringing, and it took her a moment to realize what it was.

"Oh?" Kensuke grinned at her, pausing in wringing out the mop so he could give her a sly smile. "Cellphones on campus, Class Rep?" Hikari blushed at the insinuation. She had confiscated numerous such appliances herself during her tyrant reign, and being caught like this was sure to come back to haunt her.

"I only turn it on after class is over," she defended herself, pulling her phone free from her purse. "It's just to keep in contact with my family!"

"Right," Kensuke drawled, watching Hikari continue to redden even as she answered the call. "Well, since it's something innocent like that, I'm sure I can keep it a secret. After all, innocent things like cellphones, or surfing the net during class aren't really the kind of thing you need to mention…"

Kensuke trailed off from his attempt to blackmail his female friend as the phone slipped from her fingers to fall to the ground, the touch screen cracking as it struck the tiles.

"Hikari?" he began, taking in the sight of her wide eyes and shaking fingers. "Hikari!" he yelped as she collapsed to her knees shaking as she continued to stare at her empty hands. "What happened?"

"It's…" Hikari's voice was quavering. When Kensuke tried to help her, only to realize that he had no idea how to comfort a girl, he finally settled for putting a tentative hand on her shoulder. She started, looking at him with tears already forming as she shook. Like a dying man reaching for a life preserver, she grabbed the offered limb with both hands. "It's my sister. She… she disappeared from school around lunch time, right when the police were giving the warning… Some of her classmates, they saw her, they saw her with…"

Her voice broke, a strangled sob escaping her lips, and Kensuke's eyes widened as he understood.

"Wait," he began, no longer feeling nearly as excited about having been proven right. "No, that can't be," he insisted. Quickly, he shook his head, denying outright what Hikari was trying to say. "It's impossible! They must be wrong!"

"Nozomi," Hikari gasped, burying her face in her hands, not even noticing that she was still clutching Kensuke's and nearly knocked him over as she pulled him with her. "The man in the suit… she was last seen with the man in the suit…"

"Impossible!" Kensuke's voice was rising as he continued to deny what she was saying. "You'll see! The police will find her in no time! It was probably someone from NERV, that's all…"

Kensuke trailed off from his attempt to rationalize the situation away as he glanced over at the pilot at the mention of NERV. It was the way Shinji was standing, still except for the hand holding the sponge which had been clenched into a fist so hard it was shaking. Water was dripping down the board and his arm, staining his shirt, but he made no attempt to keep himself clean.

"You," Kensuke whispered. He said again, louder this time. "You!"

Shinji flinched, apparently realizing that he had been caught listening in, and he dropped the sponge on accident.

"You know something," Kensuke declared, his free hand coming up to point in accusation at the other boy. "You're connected to it somehow!"

"Aida-kun?" Hikari gasped, looking up with red eyes at the sudden change in her somewhat friend. She hiccupped, swallowing another sob as she stared at the boy with wide, desperate eyes.

"Think about it!" Kensuke declared, suddenly absolutely certain that he was right, just like he was before. "None of this started until he arrived! And when I was showing you the website, he acted so strange! And there was no way that these incidents were quiet for so long unless someone from NERV was covering it up! He must be part of the conspiracy!"

It all made sense to Kensuke. There were just too many connections for it just to be coincidence. Maybe Shinji was even in on it! Touji had hit him, after all, so maybe the other boy had had his friend taken on purpose! Desperately, Kensuke latched on to the chance that maybe he would be able to find his best friend and the sister of his newest friend as well.

"Ikari-kun," Hikari swallowed, still shaking. She didn't know what to believe. It was ludicrous that the other boy was part of some conspiracy, but worry for her sister and desperation for any sort of news that would prove she was safe was enough for her to latch on to any kind of lead, any sort of relief. "Is it true?"

Shinji's shoulder's flinched, and he looked away, his hands clenched into fists at his side.

It was the wrong thing to do.

"Please," Hikari begged, not even bothering to get up as she scrabbled across the classroom floor to latch onto one of his hands. Desperately she looked up, meeting his eyes for the first time as she begged him. "Please! You have to tell me! I need to know! My sister, my sister is alright, isn't she? She's not in danger, right?"

"Touji too," Kensuke demanded, hands clenched into fists as he also confronted the other boy, sloshing water across the floor and his pants as he nearly jumped a few desks to get the answers that had been haunting him. "He's fine right? He's just in NERV, maybe as a pilot or something?"

Shinji met Hikari's eyes for a moment before he flinched, looking away. He swallowed, but in the face of such desperation he couldn't keep silent, even if he knew what the reaction to the truth would be.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, swallowing again as he forced the words out. They deserved to know the truth. "By now they're both de…"

Kensuke refused to let him finish the sentence. He could not let the sentence finish, because if he did, if the other boy who knew something said it, it would mean that it was inescapable, that he couldn't deny it anymore.

So to shut Shinji up, Kensuke swung at him, not even realizing that he did so with the hand still holding the bucket.

The thump of steel against skull was thunderous, and the spray of water soaked all three of them. Shinji spun with the blow, his body crashing into the blackboard before collapsing, twisting free of Hikari's grip before he finished his fall, his head again thunking against the floor as nothing arrested his fall.

"Aida-kun!" Hikari shrieked, shocked at the violence of the usually docile otaku. Kensuke was shocked too, frozen as he stared at the bucket he had just assaulted a fellow student with except for the shaking of his shoulders that his frantic heavy breathing was causing. "What the hell are you doing!"

"I… I," Kensuke tried to say something, but all he could do for a moment was stare at the too still form of his classmate. He had never engaged in violence, never hit anyone before. It had always been Touji who had been physical, not him. His own thoughts were racing desperately as he tried to come to terms with what he had done.

And it was because he was so desperate, that his frantic thinking managed to stumble upon a possible solution.

"He knows something, so maybe we can use him to get them back," Kensuke whispered, still staring at the fallen Shinji.

"What are you talking about?" Hikari demanded, and belatedly realized that Shinji could be seriously hurt. She rushed to his side, desperately putting her hand to the boy's neck like she had seen in movies before to see if he was still alive. She nearly fainted in relief when even inexperienced she still found a pulse. Two large bumps were already starting to form on the other boys head, one from the floor and the other from the bucket, and Hikari felt ill when she found a trail of blood coming from the bucket wound. "He's hurt, we need to get him to the nurse!"

"We can trade him," Kensuke was ignoring the Hikari's attempt to tend to the other boy. "We can trade him for Touji and Nozomi!"

Hikari froze, stopping her attempt to check on Shinji so she could stare with red eyes at the other boy. "What are you…"

"Think about it!" Kensuke insisted, surety on his face as he finalized his plan out loud. "Whoever it is, Ikari must know them! If he's in on it, maybe we can use him as ransom to get back our friend and your sister! And if he isn't in on it, then maybe the kidnapper would trade anyway!"

"But…" Hikari's voice was high as she listened to the plan. It was illegal, and immoral, and wrong, and if Hikari was thinking a little more clearly she would have slapped her friend for even proposing something so terrible. But the only thing Hikari could think about at that moment was her little sister with her two uneven pigtails and her bright smile. The only thing she wanted at that moment was for her sister to be safe, and she would do anything for that.

"Nozomi," Hikari whispered. Not even realizing it, she nodded in agreement with the twisted plan.

"I know just where to go!" Kensuke grinned, his earlier exuberance returning with manic force. Hikari hesitated one last time, before she gave a shaky nod.

"But," Hikari began, giving the fallen Shinji one last look. "But how are we going to move him?"

Kensuke blinked, realizing that in his current state Shinji wasn't exactly mobile, and that he himself probably wasn't strong enough to just pick the other boy up.

"Well crap," Kensuke muttered, already coming to the first snag in his plan.

*Scene Break*

Ritsuko had watched Misato work before, and for all that her old friend could be a party animal at times even the scientist had to admit that Misato in full business mode was a sight to behold.

The scene before her been growing for the last four hours, and in that time it had almost come to resemble something she'd expect to see in a crime drama. There was already a board stretched across one of the walls of Misato's office with a map of Tokyo Three attached to it. Various colored pushpins had already been stuck into numerous spots, areas mostly around schools and playgrounds as well as other gathering places for children. Many of those pushpins also had printed reports on them pertaining to rumored sightings of the criminal, the slender man as even Ritsuko was beginning to think of him. All around the room there were various other stacks of papers, reports both confirmed and unsubstantiated organized according to some method the blonde couldn't quite figure out.

Misato herself was seated in front of her computer screen, and though the captain had never been as proficient a typist as Ritsuko was even the blonde was marginally impressed at the speed that her friend was typing with using only one hand as the other hand cradled a phone to Misato's ear as she issued orders in a cool and professional voice.

This was almost like watching Misato when she was planning an angel conflict, actually.

"I want roadblocks six blocks out from the elementary school," Misato was telling whoever was on the other end of the phone, either the police or Section Two Ritsuko surmised. "With a four hour lead it's unlikely that the perpetrator is still in the area, but I want all traffic to be questioned about any potential sightings of anyone of the perpetrator's description in the company of children." She paused, listening to the response. "Yes, have the officers do that. Has the tip hotline been activated yet? Good. Make sure the fliers with the number are distributed as well."

"Isn't that a little much?" Ritsuko asked, shaking her head at Misato's zeal. "I mean, won't making this incident so well-known have a negative effect on the public?"

"Doubtful," Misato answered her friend, even as she hung up the phone, her call apparently ended. "The public never responds well to threats on children. With population issues being so prevalent, any assault on the next generation raises public outcry. With so much attention, anybody who even potentially sees the slender man is almost certain to call to report him. By the time word gets out there won't be any place left for him to hide."

"And what about false sightings and prank calls?" Ritsuko prompted, more out of a desire to play the devil's advocate then any attempt to undermine Misato's plan. Her friend's grin was satisfied.

"With the Magi sifting through reports, most of those will be ruled out quickly enough," Misato answered, giving a nod at the screen she was still typing at. Ritsuko knew that Misato wasn't exactly the most proficient when it came to programming, but the Magi had been designed to be both versatile and as user friendly as it could be. There was no knowing what type of calculations would be needed for angel attacks considering the wide variety of shapes they tended to come in, so a certain degree of flexibility was needed in their use. "And with them automatically checking any possible footage of any real leads, we should be able to narrow down the search quickly enough."

"Well, you seem to have a pretty good idea of what you're doing," Ritsuko noted, wondering just how much of this had already been planned out in Misato's head before the official order had come down. It wouldn't surprise her if a lot of this information had been gathered ahead of time on Misato's own initiative.

"Well, it's good enough for now," Misato shrugged off the complement. With a sigh, she sat back, taking the time for a small pause in her typing. With a grimace, she cracked the knuckles of both her hands, leaning back over the chair and doing the same to her neck and shoulders. "It's almost time for me to take a break, after all."

"A break?" Ritsuko was surprised to hear Misato admit to being planning to step away from her work even for a second. "You were pretty eager to get started earlier," the scientist reminded her friend. Misato grimaced, pulling herself back into a proper seated position.

"Well, school is almost out," Misato admitted, rubbing her shoulder one last time before she turned back to get the last bit of work out before she headed out. "I'll have to go and pick up Shinji soon."

"Ah," Ritsuko shook her head, realizing that she should have seen that coming. "Of course." She paused, taking a moment to look over her friend. Misato had been rather tense the last few days, and though it had been amusing at first Ritsuko was starting to worry about over her friend's concern over the Third Child's welfare. The scientist was almost worried that it was starting to reach the point of obsession. "You know," she began, not willing to voice her thoughts outright but deciding maybe a little wheedling might get Misato to let up for a bit on her smothering of the boy, "you could always have Section Two pick him up," she suggested. "They're not all incompetent, you know."

"Right," Misato drawled, giving Ritsuko a dry look. "I'm sure that one or two of them might be able to tie their own shoes, but as for the rest of them…" The phone at her desk ringing cut off whatever new bit of poison she was about to let loose on the intelligence division of NERV, and she sighed, turning back to her work.

She could always come up with new insults later, after her Shinji was safe.

Ritsuko had to suppress a small bit of disappointment at not being able to hear whatever creative insult that Misato had been preparing to deliver. She really had been getting inventive lately, and Ritsuko was starting to enjoy looking forward to what Misato came up with next. Even Gendo had been impressed with the shark bit, after all, even if he had been taking it way too seriously.

"What?" Misato's flat voice pulled Ritsuko back from her thoughts. "Could you say that again?"

A cracking noise caused Ritsuko to pause. It took her a second to recognize where it came from, and she realized with a bit of alarm that it came from the breaking of the phone's casement. Misato's knuckles were clenched so tightly that they were turning white.

"What. Do you mean. You lost. The Third Child?" Misato continued, her voice very slow, and Ritsuko tensed as she realized what the phone call was about. With baited breath she focused her full attention on Misato.

"Well find him, you worthless incompetent piece of shit!" Misato's yell was so loud that Ritsuko flinched back, rubbing her ears. "Yes there is cause for this language, and if you dare interrupt me again to waste time you should be using to look than I will shoot you, authority be damned!" Misato brought her fist down to crash against her keyboard, interrupting her programming in her fury as she tried to vent her anger. "Redirect all Section Two agents away from other schools! I want them forming a perimeter at three city blocks within ten minutes! If we do not locate the Third Child, safe an unharmed, within an hour, than I will have you, and every agent responsible for his wellbeing reporting to my office in the morning with a roll of tape and a fresh box of staples for your permanent separation from NERV!"

With a motion so violent it broke the cradle, Misato slammed the phone into its rack.

"Misato," Ritsuko began, her voice quick and worried. "You don't mean…"

"Even on high alert, those idiots couldn't keep track of one boy while he was in a freaking school!" Misato swore, wheeling away from her desk and turning to run towards the door to her office. She paused only long enough to grab her jacket from the hook at the exit.

Ritsuko had to race to keep up with Misato, following her as she ran down the hallway of NERV, heading for the underground parking garage.

"Misato," Ritsuko snapped, trying to calm her friend down. "If the Third Child is missing, then we need you here more than ever! Where do you think you're going?"

"I'll be able to direct the search from the location more easy," Misato snapped back, not bothering to hold back the anger even for her friend. "As if I trust those morons to be able to handle the scene themselves! You pass the word on to the commander, if he even cares, and then get on the Magi! I'll phone you from the scene if I need help."

Ritsuko didn't believe that her friend should be heading out, especially not in this state, but she slowed down anyway. Even if Misato was volatile, she was still damn good at what she did, and technically in charge of the search operation. It wasn't a bad order, and someone did need to report this to Gendo.

So Ritsuko watched as Misato raced away, disappearing behind a turn in the hallway, and for some reason a sense of dread was settling in her stomach.

"Well," the blonde muttered to herself, unable to resist the dark humor of the situation. "Maybe I should start looking for shark sightings."

*Scene Break*

Misato was furious as she slammed the door to her car behind her, fumbling with her keys as her hands shook with rage. Those idiots! Those incompetent idiots! They only had to watch one child in one building, and they couldn't even do that properly! Misato was never going to let Shinji out of her sight again. She'd hire him a homeschool teacher out of her own salary if she needed to!

Even as she slammed her car into gear, leaving rubber scars on pavement as she put her drifting skills to use to clear the parking lot and head to the car elevator at unsafe speeds, she was fumbling with her other hand for her phone.

Misato had been hesitant to give Shinji her cross. It was her most precious possession, one of the few things she had that existed back from before the Second Impact, and had been in her family for literally generations. Misato wasn't a material person for the most part, but it was still almost an heirloom at this point.

But more than that, she had been hesitant because she knew that she was already being overbearing with Shinji. She knew that even if he didn't seem to mind, it wasn't right to be invading his privacy so much.

And the tracking chip she had had imbedded in the cross most definitely was crossing a line when it came to invasion of privacy.

She hadn't been certain that it would be right to use his acceptance of a precious gift from her to infringe even more on his life, but she had been worried for him and in the end she had forced herself to go through with it.

She had never been more thankful for her own ability to overlook her morals before that day.

So as she waited for the express elevator to finish getting her to the surface, she pulled out her phone, manipulating the touch screen until she could pull up the app which let her locate the tracking chip. The map of Tokyo Three that came up was a small relief to her. At least he was still in the city, or at the very least the cross was still in the city.

She began pulling up maps of the quickest route between the exit of the elevator and the hopeful location of her charge:

Nagasaki Park.

*Scene Break*

'Man,' Kensuke thought to himself as he panted. 'Kidnapping is a lot harder than I thought it would be.'

"Aida-kun," Hikari began, nervously wringing her hands as her gaze twitched from her two companions and the street around them. "Are we nearly there?"

It might have seemed like the right decision to make at the time, but the longer it had been since she had decided to help Kensuke in the plan the more Hikari felt her nerves grow. She couldn't believe she was doing this! Knocking out a fellow student, taking their unconscious body against the will, and planning on trying to trade the other boy to an abductor for her sister?

This was a crime, and Hikari couldn't lie to herself about that. But even if it made her a criminal, even if she went to jail, as long as it got her Nozomi back, then she would be fine. She just had to keep telling herself that it was all for Nozomi.

"Almost," Kensuke gasped back, struggling to keep Shinji's arms around his shoulder, one hand holding the unconscious classmates wrist and the other wrapped around his waist as he half dragged, half carried the other boy. It had been hard to get him out of the school without anyone noticing, and even harder to move him through the city, but Kensuke had been inventive. Creative use of school ground's keeper supplies and hurried explanations of getting a friend home after an accidenthad been necessary, but even if it had taken time, he could finally see it.

Most of the sightings of the abductor had been around schools, yes, but some of them had been around Nagasaki Park as well. It was a long shot, but one that Kensuke was willing to risk.

They had better hurry though. It had been late afternoon when they left the school, nearing sunset actually, and the time it had taken them to lug an unconscious body across Tokyo Three had been enough time for that sunset nearly to finish. Long shadows were starting to form, and the sky was already darkening on the eastern front. If they were going to get Touji and Nozomi back, they would have to be quick.

"Through here," Kensuke declared, already knowing the best way to get into the fenced off park. There was an amphitheater right at the border, someplace that could be rented for concerts or performers, and the fence only came to the edge of the large cement building. Even with the dead weight of Shinji, he would be able to squeeze through and get into the park.

"Okay," Hikari quickly nodded, following the boy's lead. She was about to say more when a groan interrupted her, and she couldn't help a guilty look at the stirring Shinji.

"Quick," Kensuke couldn't keep a frantic excitement from his voice. "He's waking up!"

"Misato-san?" Shinji muttered, his voice slurred as he shifted. "Waz goin on?"

"Is he alright?" Hikari asked, unable to keep concern out of her voice, despite the fact that it was because of them that he was in this state, and what they were planning to do to him.

"Must be a concussion," Kensuke grunted, as the two worked together to get Shinji through the gap. He struggled slightly at the manhandling, but even that subsided as he groaned. When he was finally through, and Kensuke once again tried to brace him against his shoulders, Shinji made a gagging noise, and then vomited some bile onto the other boy's shirt. Kensuke grimaced, only then realizing that he was already dirty from the water earlier. "Definitely a concussion," he concluded, wrinkling his nose at the smell.

"Now what?" Hikari asked, her voice a whisper. It was getting darker in the park, and her nerves over what the two of them were doing was joined by a small feeling of fear that being alone in an unlit and empty park tended to engender. She had been to Nagasaki Park before, many times in fact. But had it always been so creepy? Something, something just felt wrong here. There was a smell too, something that was sweet and yet sickening. Maybe there had been some damage to a sewer vein or something?

"Now we just have to find the agentl," Kensuke didn't seem at all affected, and if he could see his own face he wouldn't have been able to recognize himself. His grin had a crazed edge to it as he envisioned what would happen next. Soon, soon they would find the foreigner, and then they would have Touji and Nozomi back! Maybe, maybe the man really was an agent too, and maybe they would be impressed by his work! They might even let him pilot a robot himself for this!

"But where is he?" Hikari asked, and she found herself drifting closer to Kensuke, her eyes whipping about as the two continued to venture further into the park. They just had to cross this one copse of trees, and then they would be out in the open again. Still, it was dark, the branches and leaves blocking out just about all of the surrounding lights. She frowned, shrinking closer to Kensuke as she noticed something else. "And what is that sound?"

"I don't hear anything," Kensuke reassured her, barely even paying attention to the girl as he tried to force the stirring body next to him to move faster. He stumbled, tripping over a root, and he nearly fell. "Crap," he snapped, trying to regain his balance. "Hey, Class Rep. Could you reach into my bag?" he asked. "I have a flash light in there."

"It's getting louder," Hikari insisted, though she fumbled at the clasp to her classmate's satchel. Then she frowned. "And why do you have a flashlight anyway?" she demanded, unconsciously falling back into her role as the representative. "There aren't supposed to be any other electronics at school!"

She almost found it comforting, to slip back into her role. It almost made her forget what they were doing, and what they were doing.

"I always have some survival gear on me," Kensuke told her, dismissing her concern. He nearly tripped again, and barely managed to regain his balance. "And what sound are you talking about?"

"That sound," Hikari snapped, fumbling as she managed to find the tube of what she assumed was the flashlight. "It's not cicadas, is it?"

"I still don't hear…" Kensuke began, before he was interrupted as the so far limp Shinji stiffened.

"No," the other boy whispered. "No. No, no. No!"

"Whoa!" Kensuke yelped as Shinji began to struggle, his body twitching in spastic motions as he tried to move despite his concussion. "Hold still!"

"No no no no no no," Shinji kept struggling, kept repeating the one word over and over again, and despite his best efforts Kensuke couldn't keep a hold of him and watch the ground in front of him. Once more, his foot caught on a root, and finally he lost his balance.

"The flashlight!" Hikari cried out, the fall causing her to lose her balance and drop the appliance.

"Trying to run?" Kensuke demanded, pushing himself to his hands and knees so he could launch himself into heroic pursuit of the other boy attempted to flee his heroic prisoner exchange. Soon, soon everything would be alright! He just needed to get Shinji a little further!

"No! Don't look! Don't look!" even if Shinji wanted to run, it looked like he wouldn't be able to manage it. Even as the pilot tried to push himself up in the same way as Kensuke, he lost his balance as one of his shaking arms gave out on him. The movement caused another vomit attack, thin bile splashing on the ground beneath him.

"Where is it, where is it?" Hikari was also muttering a mantra, patting the grass of the park around her as she tried to locate the flashlight. It was dark, and that noise was stilling going on, some kind of thrumming sound, and fear of the situation was starting to overwhelm her nervousness at the crime and worry for her sister. Finally, her fingers closed on the cylinder. "Found it!" she declared, relief making her nearly shout.

"Don't look! Don't look!" Shinji's voice was rising too as the boy seemed to abandon his attempt to get up, instead sinking onto his knees and wrapping both hands around his head, pulling himself downwards curling into a ball as he made himself as small as he could.

"You're not getting away!" Kensuke declared, managing to get to his feet and preparing to drag the other boy after him. It would be easy! Shinji wasn't even moving anymore, no doubt surrendering to the righteousness of his plan!

"Here!" Hikari shouted in relief as she turned the light on.

Her shrill scream a moment later interrupted Kensuke's attempt to pull the other boy to his feet. Whirling, surprised at the sudden noise, he spun to see what it was that making the Class Rep shriek so loudly.

And he came face to face with the tall man in the dark suit that was standing right behind him, directly between himself and Hikari.

Hikari continued to scream, but Kensuke didn't notice. Even when she turned, running into the park and taking the flashlight with her, all he could do was look up into the face of the nightmare before him.

Kensuke's last thought was that he was wrong. Wrong about Shinji, wrong about Touji and Nozomi, wrong about all his crazy conspiracy theories.

And most of all, he had been wrong to come here.

*Scene Break*

Hikari ran, her breath frantic and short from exertion and fear.

What was that? What was that? What was that?

It was all she could think, even as animal instinct caused her to flee, tripping and stumbling as she desperately tried to put as much distance between her and the thing. She couldn't think about Kensuke, or Shinji, only about how she had to get away.

She could barely keep her own footing, too terrified to even properly use the flashlight to light the ground before her. The puddle of light it provided spun wildly as she pumped her arms to try and move quicker, casting bizarre shadows and strange silhouettes all around her. Each new shape that she caused only served as more fuel for her fear.

She couldn't keep up her frantic pace for long. Hikari was by no means out of shape, but with her breathing so uneven she was losing stamina fast. Finally, she tripped, stumbling over her own feet, and when she braced her hands in front of her to try and stop her fall the hand holding the flashlight slammed into the trunk of a tree she hadn't even noticed before, and the beam of light it provided flickered and went out.

"No!" Hikari shrieked, only when the light was absent realizing that she still held the flashlight. "No!"

It was fully dark now, and after having the light on she had no night vision. She could barely see her hands in front of her as she desperately shook the flashlight, praying for it to work, praying that she wouldn't be left alone in the dark with that thing…

When it flickered back on, whatever loose fuse or short that had caused it to go out being corrected, she gave a desperate, hysterical giggle, her eyes tracking the beam of light as it went up…

That was when Hikari found Touji.

It had been two weeks since he had died, and decay was already starting to show, but she could still tell it was him. His corpse was naked, but she hardly even noticed his nudity, focusing more on the tree limb that he had been impaled on. His torso had been opened, cut straight down the front of his chest all the way to his groin as though he had been dissected, and though the rest of him was rotten his internal organs still looked fresh where they were packed tightly into the open chasm of his torso, red and pink catching the illumination from the flashliht behind some sort of clear wrapping, something that looked like plastic but glistened wrong in the light.

"No," Hikari was too weak to even scream at that point, and as her hands shook it caused the light to move. When the beam fell on yet another corpse, and then another, Hikari found she could no longer stop herself as she began to track the beam across the tree branches above her.

There were so many of them. Boys and girls, a mixture of genders without discrimination. Most of them were young, so young, just kids like her, but every once in a while an adult form was mixed in as well. It took Hikari a moment to recognize the pattern, but when she did she realized that they were all impaled in a widening spiral, circling around and away from her. When the light flashed on something blue, and Hikari realized that it was Ayanami, she found that she could no longer stop herself as she continued to trace the spiral outwards, outwards over the corpses until she would come to the end…

That was when Hikari was reunited with her sister.

When a noise occurred behind her, Hikari turned blank eyes to look at it, reacting to the stimuli without consciousness.

Hikari's last thoughts were of noise and madness, her sanity already having fled her by that point.

*Scene Break*

Misato was very firmly considering just ramming her car through the blockaded gate when she finally arrived at Nagasaki Park, but in the end decided against it.

She still had seventeen more payments, and she would need the car when she was taking Shinji home after all this.

With purposeful strides, she exited her car, moving towards her trunk as she prepared to enter the park.

She knew that she had promised Ritsuko she would call if she needed assistance, but that was a promise Misato didn't intend to keep.

It was convenient, too convenient, how Shinji had just happened to have disappeared, despite the full force of NERV supposed to be guarding him. Maybe Section Two really was just that worthless. But then again, maybe not. NERV had been hiding things from, too many things for her to ignore any more. Maybe Shinji really had just vanished, or maybe he had been made to vanish.

Whatever the case, Misato didn't trust NERV anymore. Not with the safety of her Shinji anyway. She would have to rely on them when it came to angels, but until she knew more about the secrets they were keeping, Misato wasn't going to trust them to help her save her pilot.

It was easy enough for Misato to jump the fence, though she did have a flash of annoyance at having to do so while wearing a dress. At least there weren't any perverts around to get a look at her panties though. When she strode into the park, it was with the movements of a professional. She had already retrieved a flashlight from her trunk and was holding it along with her gun, wrists crossed so she could direct the light and steady her pistol at the same time. She had taped her phone to the inside of her wrist where she could see it, the tracking beacon on the map giving her direction as she closed in.

It was the smell that gave it away for her. Even after all these years she still remembered it; that cloying sweet scent of rot. It was something she had smelt often, in the years directly after Second Impact. Misato flickered her flashlight upwards, locating the corpses strewn about in the trees, and gave them a brief professional look before she focused back downwards. She could worry about taking care of the bodies later. For now, she had to verify that Shinji wasn't one of them.

The thought made her pick up her pace a bit, but still she maintained her shooter's stance. It wouldn't do her Shinji any good to rush in and get herself killed just because she couldn't keep a cool head under pressure.

When the noise began, her eyes narrowed. It was a strange sound, a murmuring susurrate like voices in the distance or the beating of a drum. It wasn't something that Misato recognized, and that put her on edge.

'Prioritize,' she told herself. 'For now, find Shinji. After that, you can do all the investigating you want.'

When she finally managed to locate her ward, she had an immense surge of relief. It only lasted for a moment as she took in the sight of him, and then it took all she had not to abandon her professionalism and charge the rest of the way to him so she could sweep him up and carry him out of there.

He was kneeling, curled up into a ball with both hands above his head as he shook gently, rocking back and forth as he did so. As Misato closed, she could hear him whispering, "Don't look, don't look, don't look," over and over again, and endless litany which caused her to grind her teeth in frustration.

But more importantly, he was covered in blood. Thick swathes of it bathed the majority of his form, as though someone had taken a bucket of the stuff and splashed it all over him. She didn't know where the blood had come from, she didn't even know how he had come to be in this god awful place, but she could only pray that the blood wasn't his.

"Shinji," she snapped as she drew closer, not able to keep herself from calling out to him. "Are you alright?" Please, please let him be alright.

"Don't look, don't look, don't look," was all he would say, still rocking back and forth like a terrified child. With a grim swallow, Misato did the only thing she could think to.

Shifting the flashlight in her hands so she could hold it under her gun arm, she reared back and slapped the Third Child as hard as she could. He was shielding his head so she couldn't hit his cheek, but she at least was certain that he had felt it.

"Snap out of it, Shinji," she ordered, and the boy started, head twitching in her direction as though he had only just realized she had come.

"Misato-san?" he whispered, disbelief and relief warring in his tone.

"That's right, kiddo," she told him, trying to lighten her tone as she brought her flashlight back up. "You ready to get the hell out of here?"

"He's here, Misato-san," Shinji whispered, his tone groggy and distant. "He's watching. He has no eyes, but he's always watching."

"Shinji-kun," Misato began, her breath hitching, hearing the confusion in his voice. It was only then, as she looked down at him, that she took in the sight of the lumps on his head. She nearly growled at the thought of someone having struck him hard enough to leave goose eggs like that, but then his words struck her like a bolt of lightning.

'He's here!' Whirling, Misato spun, bringing the light up with her, as she spun, trying to find the one who had been terrorizing the Third Child for so long.

She made it one hundred and eighty degrees before she found him, standing directly behind her a few dozen feet away. For the first time, Misato saw the slender man fully.

Tall, that she had already known, and slim like his name had implied. But it was his arms which caused Misato to gasp. They were wrong, too long, no, they didn't count as arms at all. They just looked like arms, until they started sprouting, twisting and weaving as too many joints let the branching limbs bend and weave, at times outright twisting like serpents as they moved around his otherwise still form, and there too many of them, so many, nothing should have that many limbs, it just wasn't possible…

Even as Misato's mind tried desperately to understand what she was witnessing, she stumbled onto something which even the sight of the thing's tendril like limbs couldn't surpass.

It was his face, smooth and blended, like melting wax. It had no eyes, the Slender Man, and Misato knew that she could never think of this thing as just a slender man again because this couldn't be a just a man, this was the Slender Man from here on out, and even though it had no eyes, it was still watching her, peering at her impossibly from smooth divots which were set above its mouth, and no, that wasn't right either because that wasn't a mouth, it had no lips or shape, and it was too wide, but it was where a mouth should be, and who cared about that because it was WATCHING HER RIGHT NOW…

It was more than the fact that the thing in front of her was deformed. The presence of the Slender Man was greater than that, a sum which equaled more than just the addition of its parts. There had been dozens in Tokyo Three who had already seen it, and many, many more outside of the city as well, who had fled screaming from it, and had been taken by it. Some of those hadn't been able to even resist, driven mad or incapable of fighting back at just the sight of it.

Misato, on the other hand, wasn't like them. She had witnessed the apocalypse with her own eyes, and been the only living witness to the end of the world as it once was. She was no stranger to horrors, had been struck dumb by them before and recovered. So even as she flinched, even as she wondered if the thing in front of her might be some sort of angel itself, as her thoughts raced and her breath grew short, she raised her pistol and took aim.

"Go to hell," she told it bluntly, squeezing the trigger three times in rapid succession sending the bullets at the creature's chest.

She found herself half hoping that the bullet would be blocked, that the signature hexagonal field that indicated an AT field would pop up. Sure, it should be impossible, and it would most likely mean that both her and Shinji were about to die, but it would be an explanation for the thing in front of her, it would give it a meaning that she could understand instead of just this incomprehensible source of dread. Instead, the bullets impacted, striking the thing directly where she had aimed, punching through the white of its shirt with a spurt of something dark, something which might be blood.

The Slender Man's torso twitched as the bullets struck twisting backwards in response to each of the impacts, its body moving like a normal humans as the force of the bullets' inertia caused it to react, sending it falling backwards. Then, before Misato's disbelieving eyes it froze, the twisting tendrils of its arms snapping backwards, supporting it, keeping it from falling, pushing it back up into its usual stance. For a moment it was still, then like a bird the thing's head cocked, twisting downwards, directing its featureless face in a way that looked as though it was studying the wound. With another of its eerie movements, it snapped back up, and this time Misato was certain that the thing was looking at her.

Then, in front of her disbelieving eyes, it began to push itself even further upwards. Its strange limbs were lengthening, no, they were unwrapping, the ungodly conglomerates of joints and fluidity which its arms were composed of twisting loose like yarn unraveling as more and more of its limbs started appearing. They pushed, raising the thing's still too human like body until it was off the ground, suspending the human portion, still perfectly poised and straight, like a spider or a crab as it suspended the body above the earth.

Hanging there, now towering above her by nearly a dozen feet, the thing's mouth opened. Misato wasn't expecting the noise that emerged, a tinkling, high pitched sound, something which sounded disturbingly like the laughter of a child, and she shuddered at it.

'I think I made it mad,' Misato decided.

"Shinji," she said softly, never taking her eyes off the Slender Man, now looking very little like a man at all. "I want you to run."

"Misato-san?" Shinji repeated, still sounding groggy and confused, still terrified.

"Run, Shinji," Misato repeated, eyes locked on where the creature's eyes should be, and God help her she could feel it looking back at her. The sound of a laughing child started to grow, and urgency began to course through her. "This is an order!" she shouted, and Shinji flinched at the sudden volume. "Run!"

As though her voice was a whip, Shinji lurched, crawling desperately along the ground, his arms and legs still shaky as he finally regained his footing. Twisting, he nearly fell but he caught himself on a tree, obeying Misato's order as he began to force himself to move, to escape.

Misato wished she could watch him go, but she refused to take her eyes off the Slender Man, still poised above her, still with the childish peels of its voice like a dagger in her ears. She didn't want her last memory of Shinji to be of him on the ground cowering, covered in blood. She wished it could have been like this morning, him blushing in embarrassment at her teasing or maybe the calm and serene pose he had when he was cooking.

But somehow, she didn't think that she was going to have the chance to see him ever again. She was fine with that. So long as he escaped, she was fine with whatever was about to happen.

"You can't have him," she told the Slender Man, raising her pistol again. The sound of laughing children cut off, and then they both were moving, Misato's pistol roaring in the night as she prepared herself for the only way she truly believed this could end.

*Scene Break*

Shinji stumbled as he fled, barely managing to keep moving. His head ached, a dull throbbing that felt like it was pounding into his skull, and his stomach rebelled at the motion. Every move felt like it would bring up more bile, like it would shake his head lose. He could barely keep his balance, but whenever he did fall he would force himself back up, force himself to move.

'Run,' Misato had told him. Shinji didn't know where he was, didn't even know how he had gotten here, but he did know one thing:

That he trusted Misato.

Behind him, he could hear a shout, her shout, and the echo of gunfire continued, the noise yet another hammer into his head. What was he doing here? What was she doing here? Everything was hazy to him, like a bad dream.

He almost hoped it was, that he would wake up soon and he would find himself again having to fight free of Misato's arms though not really wanting to be away from the comfort they provided him.

But Shinji was beyond that kind of hope. He already knew that you never woke up from these kinds of dreams.

"Don't look, don't look, don't look," he realized that he was speaking, that he was saying the same thing over and over again. 'Don't look'. How long had he been telling himself that? He didn't even remember a time when those words hadn't been his only hope, his only chance of survival. So many times, in the dark of the night he would feel the Slender Man's presence, hear its voice, and only repeating those words over and over again had been what allowed him to survive.

'Run.' Again, he remembered Misato's words, her order, and even in his confusion the voice was comforting. He could still hear her, even as he obeyed her order. Shinji could hear Misato…

She was screaming.

Shinji froze. He lost his balance, falling again, and ran into something hard, the sound of falling metal impacting his aching ears. He had made it free of the copse of tree, was in the park proper now. He realized belatedly that he had somehow managed to stumble across a trailer of some sort, with a truck next to it. He tried to focus, to make sense of the situation, and the sight of piled plywood and a cement mixer finally gave him some sort of clue as to where he was.

'Was this a construction site or something?' he blearily wondered, taking in the caution signs and a few scattered tools. He realized that when he fell he must have struck some sort of toolbox, knocking it open and spreading everything inside around him.

Blearily, his vision settled on something, and he found himself freezing.

'Run,' Misato had told him, and now she was somewhere, in the dark with the thing he knew all too well, screaming. 'Run.'

"I can't run," Shinji muttered, his eyes still locked inescapably on what he had found. Just thinking hurt, a dull ache which made his thoughts twisted, strange. "I mustn't run. I mustn't run away. I mustn't run away. I mustn't run away…"

He couldn't run. Not when HIS Misato was in trouble. He didn't even realize that he had started thinking of Misato as his, or that he had begun to growl at the thought of anything hurting her.

Not even noticing his new mantra began, instead he found himself reaching for the thing he had found…

*Scene Break*

As Misato choked, the tendril wrapped around her neck keeping her from finding proper air, she blamed the lack of oxygen for her next thought.

'Didn't I see a tentacle porn like this once?' she thought to herself, unable to even voice the hysterical giggle as she struggled, the limbs of the Slender Man pinning her to a tree. Its limbs were everywhere, around her neck, her arms, her legs, forcing her back as they overwhelmed her through sheer number.

She had tried to distract the thing as long as possible, tried to weave through the trees to give herself cover, to force enough bullets into it so that even it would die, but in the end it had been to no avail.

When the Slender Man moved, it moved like an avalanche, an overwhelming flurry of flashing tentacles and bending arms. It was like watching the legs of a centipede, the way all the limbs moved so fluently among themselves despite their twisted and interlocked nature. It had been fast, so very fast. Misato had tried to outrace it, to lead it somewhere where it wouldn't have any cover, but she only had two legs and was limited in her movement by having to watch her step, having to use the flashlight both to find the Slender Man and to find her footing.

Every time she had glanced away to check her path, the thing had vanished, reappearing behind her, to the side of her, once even directly in front of her from behind a tree which had been far too slim to conceal those limbs of its.

Misato was good. She hadn't been hired as the chief of operations by an organization like NERV for being a pretty face. She was fast, and damn accurate with her gun. She was smart, and could make split second analysis which rivaled even the computing speed of the Magi at times, a human intuition which let people make instant decisions based on only half recognized facts and barely observed phenomenon.

But good wasn't enough. Good wouldn't let her escape the park tonight. Good wouldn't let her see her Shinji again.

Hopefully, good would be enough for him to survive. That had been the only grace which let her grit her teeth and endure as the tendrils finally clapped around her, lifting her and slamming her against the trunk now biting into her back.

Still, even now, she tried. She had just enough mobility to try and angle her gun towards the looming body of the Slender Man, just enough hope to keep pulling the trigger, hoping each time that by some miracle the empty magazine would be replaced and she could put a bullet right between those flat white spaces that stared at her even without eyes.

The Slender Man cocked its head at her, and Misato wished she could spit at it, to do anything to try and sully that nearly immaculate poise of its. The entire time it had been hunting her, even though its limbs were a roiling mass around it, it's human like body had been perfectly still, perfectly poised, held straight as a statue perpendicular to the earth. The only part of it besides its arms that moved was its head, twitching from side to side, shaking at times too fast for her eye to follow, like a movie skipping at a particular scene.

In a way, it was even worse than the angels. The angels, they fought, they reacted, and they were almost human. The third angel had tried to torture Shinji before it killed him, breaking the Eva's arm and choosing to try and gouge out the Eva's eyes before it had learned that playing with its prey wasn't a good idea. The fourth had tried to flee when it had been wounded, to escape. Hell, even the fifth had seemed to employ logic, targeting only what could be a threat to it, and once it and the positron's rifle's shots had ruined each other's' aims it had almost seemed desperate when it tried to finish the job before Shinji could kill it.

This thing, the Slender Man, it had no such reactions, no such signs of humanity. The angel's logic was alien, but it was logic. This thing, it only seemed to do what it did because that was just what it did.

'Please,' Misato begged in her mind as one of its limbs raised in front of it, the strange dark thing lining itself up above her. The limbs holding her down were soft to the touch like cotton or something silkier, but they were also as strong as steel. This new limb that was slowly descending on her probably felt the same, but the way it came to such a wicked point spoke nothing good of what was about to happen to her. 'Please, let Shinji have made it out of here.'

The pointed tendril came down, descending to just above the center of her chest, at the hollow of her throat. Misato grit her teeth as it started to dig into her flesh, pulling downwards and dragging through her skin. She remembered the corpses she had seen earlier, and realized what would come next. It didn't go through her bones, but it cut at least that deep. Down it went, parting her dress, her bra, her skin, and her flesh like a hot knife through butter.

'If this really was one of those tentacle porns, now would be the point where I say "That's the wrong hole!",' she thought to herself, hysteria and fear and oxygen deprivation striking her, and oh god, that had to be the most PATHETIC last thought in the history of last thoughts…

And then the cutting stopped, the tendrils around her stiffening then loosening and pulling free, and she could breathe again, great desperate gasps as one hand came up, trying to ineffectively stop the bleeding, to close the wound. Misato felt wild, her thoughts a tumble she couldn't quite make out, not understanding why the pain had stopped spreading, but overwhelmingly grateful that it had.

It was only after a few moments had passed that she realized a new sound had joined the unending susurrate of the Slender Man's presence.

It was a howl, a deep screaming noise like the bellow of an unfathomable beast. It was something which belonged on a monster, no, which she had heard from a monster before, and with wide, disbelieving eyes, Misato looked up.

"Shinji-kun," she whispered, staring at the battle before her.

It was unbelievable. Shinji was slight, young, nearly effeminate at times. Shinji liked to cook, and blushed and stammered awkwardly at even the hint of nudity. Shinji was gentle and kind.

And yet before her eyes, she watched as Shinji screamed and thrashed from where he had tackled the Slender Man to the ground. He should have been overwhelmed in a moment, the innumerable whips and joints of the thing's arms capturing him and overwhelming. As she watched, one of them wrapped around his neck, tightening, and she opened her mouth to shout a warning only to be cut off as her Shinji just reached up, grasping the thing's tendril with one hand before slashing it with the other, then just ripping, tearing the whole piece from the Slender Man's body.

'Is that… is that a box cutter?' Misato realized, catching sight of the glint of steel in the hand he had slashed with, the small tool flailing about and biting into the mass of dark twisting things around him. It was impossible. It was ludicrous. Such a thing was so small, so pointless that it shouldn't be enough to match the Slender Man, and yet Shinji was fighting with it.

And he looked like he was winning!

The scene struck something in Misato, and with wide eyes she stared, frozen with one hand up to her chest as she realized what the scene she was watching reminded her of. The howling, flailing Shinji, small knife in hand…

It was like watching the Evangelion Unit One when it was berserk.

The box cutter even resembled the progressive knife that was standard equipment for the Evangelions, just a slim casing with an extendable razor. As Shinji howled again, the seemingly insignificant blade actually penetrating the writhing mass and digging into the Slender Man's white shirt, the boy grabbing and tearing yet another of the limbs trying to grasp him, Misato could only stare.

Where was this strength coming from? Was it the expression of years of turmoil and suffering, a victim snapping and taking out their oppressor in a fury of vengeance? Or was it like the strength that desperate mothers or fathers sometimes showed, lifting up entire trucks when their children were trapped beneath them? Misato shuddered, and a new thought hit her, sending a cold feeling that managed to penetrate even her pain and confusion.

Just how much of the Evangelion's berserker fury came from the machines itself, and just how much of it had always been there in the small, unassuming boy who piloted it?

The Slender Man's mouth opened again, and this time the noise that came from its maw was like dozens children with voices raised in joy, the exalting laugh of innumerous youth, and Misato shuddered again as she realized that the creature was screaming in pain, and that its screaming sounded like the joy of the innocent, and godamnit she would NEVER be able to go near a kindergarten class again, and it looked like Shinji was winning, above all odds…

And then Misato realized that she was just sitting there with a gun and a fresh clip just waiting, and what the hell was she doing just sitting there when she should be over there helping her Shinji kill that fucking thing!

Misato screamed as well, and mindless of her wound, mindless of the blood spilling out of her and staining her dress, even seeping down her panties and dripping down her legs, she ejected the empty clip and slammed the new one home, a well-practiced and easy movement. These were the new rounds too, the ones she had been experimenting with ever since her first attempt to kill the Slender Man had been foiled by bullet proof glass. Charging forward, Misato took a cue from her still stabbing ward and just pushed her way through the tendrils until she could slam the barrel of her gun into that gaping maw, the sound of children laughing unaffected despite the obstruction, and then she pulled the trigger, flashes of light from the firing muffled by the creatures mouth, and she pulled again, and again, and again….

It wasn't until Misato realized that her voice was hoarse, that her lungs were aching and begging her to breathe again, that she was repeatedly dry shooting her gun. She realized with a start that she had no idea how long she had been doing so, or just when she had ran out of bullets. Her fingers ached, and her hand was trembling from how tightly she was clutching the handle of her pistol.

She realized with another start, that every time she pulled the trigger, it was echoed by a thump. Blearily, she looked over to find that the source of the noise was Shinji, endlessly lifting and dropping his arms as he stabbed over, and over, and over again. When she looked down to see what it was he was carving she remembered, the shock of the battle wearing off.

Beneath them, the Slender Man lay still, his arms spread out around them like some demented heavenly angel's wings.

"It's dead?" Misato asked herself, staring, her voice a cracked whisper as she tried to comprehend the sight before her. She realized belatedly that she was still pulling the trigger of her gun, the movement synchronized with Shinji's unending brutality.

"Shinji," she tried to call, and coughed, spitting up a bit of blood. 'Wow', she noted blearily. 'I really did a number on my throat.' She tried again, with more success this time. "Shinji."

The other boy didn't seem to notice her, his face a rictus snarl as he continued to stab the unmoving thing beneath them. Misato reached out to stop him, and realized belatedly that maybe attempting to interrupt someone who was in the midst of a nervous breakdown and holding a knife wasn't the smartest move. Shinji turned at her, snarling…

And then stopped. The moment she came into his sight, he calmed, his expression shifting back into something that was more familiar to the older woman.

"Misato-san?" he asked, and his own voice was harsh from abuse. He also blinked, apparently only then realizing what had happened. "It's…" he stared down at the thing beneath them, disbelief on his face at the sight of the hacked flesh that had once been the unstoppable source of terror in his life. He looked up again, and Misato realized that he was looking up, that he was actually facing her straight on, and that she could see his eyes without having to bend over.

She couldn't stop herself. Even if she did have the self-control to pull back, she wouldn't have.

Misato reached out, wrapped her arms around Shinji, and pulled him into a hug, dragging both of them off the corpse of the Slender Man. She didn't care that her dress was ruined and hanging off of her, that her bra was equally useless, and that she was pressing him against her bare blood stained chest. She didn't care that her body was soaked with sweat and dirt, and just about every inch of her hurt.

"Shinji," she was crying, unable to believe that they had lived, that they had won, that he was safe at last.

"M-Misato-san," for once, it looked like Shinji was in agreement with her. The box cutter tumbled from his grip, and he reached out, desperately clinging to her, and she felt wetness that had nothing to do with her blood and sweat staining her chest as he cried.

Misato wasn't certain how long the two of them stayed like that either. It seemed to be a night for lost time. Honestly, she didn't even care. NERV, the angels, the rest of the world, it could all wait for now. Her Shinji and her had survived.

Okay, maybe she did care a bit.

"Well, Shin-chan," she finally managed to hiccup, laughing despite the tears of relief. "How does it feel to be the first guy in your class to get to second base?"

"Misato-san!" For once, Shinji didn't seem outraged by her service, hiccupping himself as he laughed along with her. He looked up again, and god that thrilled her nearly as much as their survival, to see him actually facing away from the floor. "Pretty good?" he offered hesitantly from his place between her breasts, a shy smile on his face.

"Oh, you charmer you!" Misato crowed, beaming down at her ward. Slowly, reluctant to let him go, she backed up a bit, arms still around his shoulders as the two kneeled facing each other. "We better wait a bit," she told him, giving him a wink, "otherwise you might take advantage of me!"

"Misato-san," Shinji blushed a bit, before glancing at her chest again. It looked like an involuntary action, the kind of thing she'd expect from a normal boy his age, but it appeared that only then he finally saw the state she was in. "Misato-san!" he yelped, his voice high with worry. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," she reassured him, grimacing as she finally came down enough from the adrenaline for the pain to hit her again. "It isn't the first time for me." It looked like her scar from second impact was going to have a friend soon. She was never going to be able to show off her cleavage again if this kept up. "For now, lets…"

Misato trailed off, her eyes widening, sheer disbelief overwhelming the joviality of just a moment ago.

The corpse of the Slender Man was gone.

Only then did she realize that the low murmuring noise, the sound of a distant crowd, it had never disappeared, it was never gone. The entire time, even while they had been fighting for their lives and bantering afterwards, the sound had continued.

Shinji followed her gaze, and he too froze.

Then, from the dark woods around them, the sound of a child laughing greeted their ears.

"No," Misato whispered, her arms going slack and falling to her side. It shouldn't be possible! They had killed it! She had put enough high velocity bullets into its skull to penetrate a tank's armor, and Shinji had carved it up enough to make a butcher jealous! This was impossible.

From around them, as though to mock her disbelief, the sound of a child's laughter grew.

"No," Misato whispered again, slumping down, her eyes screwing shut as she tried to force herself to wake up from this bad dream. After everything they did, as wounded as they were, still it continued…

For the first time since she watched her father die, since she had seen the angel of light as it destroyed, Misato felt despair. There was nothing she could do in the face of this hopelessness.

Swallowing, Misato looked up. She wanted to apologize to Shinji, before it ended. She wanted to tell him she was sorry, and that she wished she could have done more, and that he didn't deserve this…

However, when she met Shinji's eyes, and then saw them drift downwards, the words failed her. There was no apologizing for this, no possible forgiveness. She was supposed to protect him, and yet…

The clicking sound of a razor being extended interrupted her despair. With wide eyes, she watched as Shinji picked the box cutter back up, watched as he rose to his feet. With incomprehension, she saw as he stood in front of her, holding the knife like he did when he was in his Eva, putting his back to her and facing out into the darkness, head still upraised.

"I mustn't run away," she heard him whisper. She swallowed, staring at the back of the boy, no, the young man in front of her.

"You're amazing," she whispered, unable to understand how someone who had been through so much could keep on living, could get back up and continue to fight even in a situation like this.

When faced with something like that, there was only one thing she could do.

With another of those practiced motions, she ejected the empty clip of the pistol, reaching for her next and final clip of bullets.

Her hands were shaking from adrenaline and pain. Her dress was ruined, and her modesty destroyed. She was covered in blood, and filth, and sweat. Her eyesight was blurry with pain and tiredness. She could only barely get the next clip into the pistol, blood loss finally starting to affect her.

She looked at her companion. Shinji was also shaking, and he still had those two large bumps on his head. His eyes were slightly unfocused, and one of them was dilated, probably from a concussion. He was covered with blood, much of it hers but some of it probably his. His hair, where he had been pressed against her chest, was slick with the crimson fluid against his face. Vomit stains ran down his formerly white shirt.

"Shinji," Misato told him. "When we get out of this, I'm going to show you how adults kiss."

It was a promise as much to herself as it was to him. She needed something to help her get through what was about to happen, and after everything that happened tonight she could no longer think of her Shinji as just a boy. No one who had done what he had could ever be thought of like that. They would make it through this. For no other reason that so that she could show him what it meant to be a man, she would make sure of it.

"Misato-san," Shinji gave his usual sigh to her outrageous provocations, and even in this situation he managed to blush a bit. Shyly, completely at odds with his firm stance, he met her eyes again. Misato realized just how much of a thrill that action gave her. "Okay," he agreed softly.

With a nod, Misato prepared herself.

And around them, the sound of children laughing grew.


	6. Chapter 6

Don't Look

_Author's notes: And here it is, the finale of Don't Look. I do hope you all enjoyed this brief foray into the unknown._

_There were a few very good reviews out there, many expressing delight in the story, as well as some that were negative but constructive in nature. _

_To Adrift at Sea and Daniel-gudman, your reviews were very well thought and structured. I read them with great interest, and thank you for stating your opinions so politely and with well thought out arguments. I had thought about trying to write a response to them in this section, but it seemed like it would just draw out the notes section too long, so in the end I decided to just settle on the thanks, and to let you know that I'm grateful for your heartfelt reviews._

_Many of the other reviews, the ones positive in nature, to you all I say thanks! This story was kind of spur of the moment. I literally came up with it a week ago, and decided to rush it in the spirit of the Halloween season, so I'm glad I managed to give you all a bit of a thrill. This isn't exactly an epic masterpiece, but not every story has to be, so enjoy it in the spirit it was written, a good quick bit of spooky fun!_

_Now, onto the rest of the notes._

_There isn't going to be a spoiler section here. After reviewing the chapter, I've decided that there isn't terribly much here I want to draw attention to. It's mostly slice of life, vague foreshadowing to events which will never be penned but may or may not happen anyway, and a little bit of closure at the end._

_So enjoy, as Kaji and Asuka set foot into a world they aren't quite prepared for, Ritsuko questions many things, Gendo shows just how hardhearted he is, and Rei begins to disturb even me._

_As for Misato and Shinji..._

_Nah. No spoilers here. Read on and learn of their fates._

_Enjoy, dear readers._

_Gabriel Blessing_

*Story Start*

"Man," Asuka whined in a huff. "I thought the Japanese were supposed to be polite! Shouldn't there have been someone to meet us at the door?"

"Now, now," Kaji tried to soothe the teen girl, having to fall back on his lady killer smile. "I'm certain someone will be along soon. The Head of Operations typically greets pilots on their arrival, after all."

It worked, but had the disturbing consequence of the younger girl trying to give him a flirtatious look back. He was willing to admit, in an objective and completely non-creepy sort of way, that Asuka had been growing up nicely in the last few years, but still, she was only fourteen.

Kaji had grown up in the chaos and wars which had sprung up directly after the Second Impact. He had been involved in the fighting back then too, a stereotype and a statistic of yet another child soldier so prevalent of those times. He had seen what some people would do, regardless of age or gender, in the heat of the moment.

There were some things that Kaji would never do, had sworn to die before imitating. And unfortunately for Asuka, pedophilia was one such thing.

Still, that didn't stop him from using his charms to help soothe the savage beast at his side. Even as he smiled, his mind wandered.

When the plan had changed, there had been nothing Kaji could do besides shrug. It wasn't uncommon, in the spy business, for unexpected happenings to occur, and sometimes you just had to roll with the blows. Kaji was a damn good spy at that, so when it had been Fuyutsuki himself who had shown up to meet the two on the 'Over the Rainbow', rather than Misato and the Third Child, Kaji had raised an eyebrow and surrendered the case holding Adam without comment.

The new orders he had received at the time, those had raised the other eyebrow. 'Don't let the Second Child out of your sight.' It wasn't exactly an unexpected order. The safety of the Children was paramount for the survival of humanity. But surely the standard security measures that had been in place for years would be enough.

Still, Kaji had done his best to obey, needing to appear the dutiful and diligent employee in order to maintain his infiltration. He'd done his best to ensure that Asuka was nearby as much as possible. When made sure to be there during meals, and when he was finished with some of the more bland tasks that he had to continue to maintain his cover, he would spend some time with her afterwards as well.

He felt he was doing a fairly good job of keeping an eye on the Second Child. He just wished that she hadn't taken the increased time he spent in her company as burgeoning romantic interest in her.

Still, they had been waiting at the lobby of NERV for nearly an hour now. He wondered just what the holdup was. He knew that Misato was the Head of Operations, after all, and it wasn't like her to be late. He wondered briefly if she had somehow found out that he was going to be present, despite his best attempts to keep her from finding out about his transfer to NERV, and was just keeping them waiting out of spite.

When someone finally did come, he noted with surprise that it wasn't Misato at all.

"I'm sorry for the delay!" the newcomer bowed to them, nervous apology in her voice. She was cute, that much Kaji gave her, but in a mousy, girl next store kind of way rather than the bombshell Misato that he had been expecting. "Synchronization tests ran long, and I completely forgot that I was supposed to meet you here! Please forgive my rudeness!"

"This is the head of operations?" Asuka scoffed, taking in the sight of the older woman with scorn. "What happened to Misato?" she continued, leaving off most of the customary suffixes as she referred to the woman she had already met. "Did she finally pickle her liver or something?"

It appeared that the fiery redhead didn't think that something like a mere synchronization test should have been enough to cause her delay. After all, now that she was here it's not like the other pilots mattered anymore. She was the best pilot that NERV had, and there was no way those extras they had been making due with should take precedence over her!

"Now, now, Asuka-chan," Kaji moved to calm things down, noticing how the mousy newcomer flinched at the German's bluntness. "I'm sure that there were extenuating circumstances. Right, miss…?" He trailed off, ending his sentence with a gentle tone of suggestion, and the newcomer blinked, understanding what he was aiming at.

"Ah! My name is Ibiki," she belatedly introduced herself. "Maya Ibiki."

"Well than, Maya-chan," Kaji favored her with another of his signature smiles. This wasn't Misato, sure, but he could work with this for now. He had been expecting Misato, and had dressed accordingly, but with his current look he was certain he could charm the shy seeming replacement. "Is there anything we can do for you?"

He finished his line with a wink, straightening his jacket as he did so. Originally he had been planning to show up in something more casual, but the change in plan on the 'Over the Rainbow' had changed his mind. It could have been prompted by something he was unaware of, but it could just as easily have been a sign of distrust between the higher ranks of NERV and himself. Until he could determine the nature of the rift, he had decided to try and present a more professional demeanor, coming in full business attire until he had ingratiated himself enough to dress in a more relaxed fashion.

Still, it was Kaji in the end, and he had decided to avoid the tie for now. He never liked ties. Stuffy things, reminded him of nooses. Why anyone would willingly wear one he had no clue.

"That's what I should be saying for you two," Maya seemed embarrassed that her guests were the ones offering to do her favors, and she hastily gestured behind her. "I'm supposed to help you two set up your apartment with housing, and walk you through getting your transfer papers in order."

"Well, lead on, Maya-chan," Kaji held his boyish grin, and this time Maya blushed at the flirtation, rather than embarrassment. At his side Asuka huffed, folding her arms and leveling a glare at the older woman. She didn't like seeing her Kaji flirt with anyone but her! She decided then and there that she didn't like the other woman.

Still, as they navigated the labyrinthine hallways of NERV, there was something that Kaji found himself coming back to, a slip of the tongue that bothered him slightly.

"So, Maya-chan," he began, giving a more relaxed smile rather than a charming one as he broke the ice between the two of them. "Which apartments will Asuka and I be getting? I imagine she will most likely be in the area of the other pilots, but I'll probably end up with the other single employees?"

It was meant to break the ice anyway, and Kaji already had a joke lined up about how cramped his quarters would be in comparison to Asuka's, when he realized that Maya had frozen.

"You," the mousy girl swallowed slightly, suddenly far more nervous than she had been earlier. "You haven't received the briefing yet?" Her eyes shifted again, and she seemed to realize something. "No, you can't have," she muttered quickly, and then much to Kaji's everlasting surprise, the woman actually dropped her clipboard, and began to frantically strip him.

"Stop that!" Asuka shrieked, already moving to stop the woman's strange an unexpected assault. She knew that Kaji was irresistible, but there were limits!

"Whoa!" for once Kaji was in agreement with his charge about her opinion of strange woman stripping him. Maybe later, after they had a few drinks and he had a proper apartment without the teenager around, maybe than he could play along, but in the middle of a hallway on his first day? He was still trying to make a good impression!

"You don't understand," Maya was still trying to undress him, her fingers frantically tugging at the buttons of his suite. "Major Katsuragi and the Third Child, you see, there was an incident…" She trailed off nervously, but Kaji managed to glean some information from her vague statement.

"Major?" he repeated, wondering at Katsuragi's apparent promotion. Then his eyes narrowed as he caught the second part of Maya's disjointed sentence. "An incident? Are they alright?"

Kaji's worried that maybe the reason Misato hadn't come down to greet him might be more serious than he had anticipated.

"They're, um, that is," Maya began, and she definitely looked unnerved about something, but she was interrupted from her explanation as something unusual happened in the hallway in front of them.

There had been a bit of variety in the traffic of the hallway they were walking down, a number of different uniforms denoting the other traveler's occupation. The ones in jumpsuits were most likely mechanics, the ones in NERV's standard pseudo-military uniforms like the one Maya was wearing almost certainly lab or operations personnel, but there had been a few plain clothed employees as well. Kaji had assumed they were most likely Section Two, dressed for infiltration purposes.

One such plain clothed agent had been about to reach the intersection a little bit before them when Maya had begun her ill-timed attack on his clothes. When the man started, and then hurriedly turned around and started jogging quickly back down the hallway he had just traveled, Kaji blinked, surprised at the unexpected about face. The man certainly looked nervous about something.

Even though Kaji only felt confusion at the incident, it seemed to mean something to Maya. With a wince, she released his clothes, and began to back away from him nervously.

Kaji had time to wonder just what the hell was going on, when he saw someone he had been expecting coming through the intersection.

"Oi! Misato!" he called, grinning cheerfully at the sight of his old beau. Finally, someone who would make sense. His former girlfriend was in a black dress that ended a bit high on her thighs, and with a red jacket and barrette. She still looked every bit as good as she did back in college.

And it looked like she had company. Kaji took in the boy walking next to her, and could only assume that this was the Third Child he had heard so much about in the past. The boy was dressed in a white shirt and black pants, a school uniform he assumed though at this time of the day the kid should be at school rather than at NERV. He and Misato seemed to be talking about something, and Misato was laughing slightly as the boy had a restrained grin present even while he kept his head bowed.

Kaji was expecting a lot of things when Misato turned, looking in the direction of the one who had called her name. He had been hoping to get some teasing in on his old girlfriend, maybe break the ice with the Third Child as well. He even had a joke about her being wild in bed that he had been hoping to spring on the two, partially just to get a laugh and partially to honestly judge if Misato was in a relationship now.

He was not expecting the way Misato's eyes went hard. A surge of adrenaline shot through him as she moved, one hand coming up in front of the Third Child, forcing him back and behind her as the other darted with lightning speed into her jacket, drawing her pistol in a disturbingly fast motion. Almost in slow motion, the kind of perception that only came in life or death situations, Kaji saw how her eyes were dilated, how her finger was brushing the safety of the gun off, the barrel aimed dead center between his eyes and he knew, KNEW that he was about to die…

And then Misato stopped. His heartbeat thundering in his throat, he saw how she froze, and it took him a moment to realize that the only reason he had stopped was because the Third Child had reached up from his position behind her to gently touch her elbow. The contact seemed to bring Misato back, and her eyes focused again, taking in just who it was she had been about to kill.

"Oh," Misato muttered, and as though she hadn't just nearly killed him she calmly redid safety of her gun and tucked it back into her holster. "It's just you."

"What the hell are you doing!" again, Asuka shrieked, and the girl was nearly hyperventilating herself at the sudden and completely unprovoked near murder that had occurred only moments ago. "Is everyone here in Japan crazy?" she demanded, looking over to Maya to see how the other woman was reacting to her coworkers' insane actions.

When she saw that Maya did not look at all surprised, and indeed was mostly focusing on cringing away from both Kaji and Misato simultaneously, she decided that yes, everyone here must be mad.

"I…" Kaji swallowed, still feeling his heart racing. "I guess you're still mad about the breakup?" he offered, not sure if he was being serious or making a joke himself at the moment.

Misato snorted at him, before she continued down the hallway, the Third Child silently moving to resume his place at her side. Kaji couldn't read their body language, but he found the way the other boy was so comfortable in such close proximity to the older woman to be a little disturbing. Just as disturbing as the way Misato seemed poised to move, nearly hovering over the Third Child like a guardian, or even a lover.

As though nothing happened, the two turned down the hallway they had been walking down, approaching the trio as though nothing had happened. Misato paused right before they passed by, and gave Kaji a hard, searching look, her eyes wondering up and down his body.

"I don't like your suit," she told him, her voice firm. "Don't wear one again."

With that final statement, the woman and the boy continued by. Kaji was willing to let them go, realizing that there was something going on here, that something was seriously wrong and until he had more information he had no idea just what might provoke the strange hard eyed woman that Misato had become since he last saw her.

Asuka, on the other hand, wasn't so good at refraining from provocation.

The fiery redhead had had enough. Ever since coming to NERV-Japan, things had been weird. Being ignored and made to wait in the lobby, strange women pulling guns on random by-standards, it had been wearing on her nerves.

But the final straw was the way the Third Child had just walked by her, not even looking up! She would not be ignored, and if he was ignorant about just who she was, she would make sure that he knew here and now just who the superior pilot was.

"Wait just a second, Third Child!" Asuka declared, reaching out to grab the boy's shoulder so she could spin him around. She ignored the warning cry from Maya, not deeming the mousy woman worthy of notice.

The moment her hands brushed against his shoulder, the Third Child whirled, his head whipping around so fast that his bangs moved under the inertia as he spun, one hand snapping out to latch onto her own as the other rocketed out of his pocket, and Asuka squeaked at the gleam of steel, a box cutter clicking open as the blade sliced towards her neck, the sharp point preparing to cut through her throat…

And just like before, the sudden assault froze. Kaji had been preparing to move, knowing that he would be too late but not willing to let the Third Child kill his ward right in front of him without him doing something about it, when he saw that this time it was Misato who pulled everything back from the brink of violence. It was just a small touch, the Major's fingers brushing against his back, but it was enough, and the boy's weapon stopped a good foot away from Asuka's neck.

"Oh," the boy declared, and he actually sounded genuinely embarrassed as he gave a sheepish smile to the now frozen German. "I'm sorry," he apologized politely, bowing slightly as he released the arm he had grabbed and pocketed his knife again, "but I don't like it when people come up behind me."

Kaji had his first proper look at the Third Child's eyes then. He had seen pictures before, but the boy had always been looking down, much of his face covered by his bangs. Kaji was finally able to see the premature lines on the boy's face, and he noted with a start that the Third Child actually had a sprinkling of grey spread through his hair.

Asuka was frozen, too shocked by her own near encounter with death to even think of a rejoinder, to even get outraged at his assault. She remained frozen even as the two turned again, continuing their journey to whatever destination they had been heading towards. Kaji took in the way many NERV employees would deliberately cross to the other side of the hallway rather than get close to them.

"You mentioned some kind of incident?" Kaji finally got out, both his throat and his tone a little dry as he finally managed to react to the encounter. Maya gave a shaky nod.

*Scene Break*

Kaji gave the report in front of him a studying look. Both he and Asuka had been supplied one, and the two had been working their way through it in between various paperwork and administrative tasks that Maya had been leading them between.

It was a well-documented, and very thorough report, Kaji had to give it that much. It quoted statistics, gave facts, and he bet that if he tried to verify it every little bit would check out properly.

He was also willing to bet that most of it was full of shit too.

"So, what? The Third Child has a run in with some crazy stalkers and he gets to walk around NERV with a knife now?" Asuka demanded, and Kaji wondered if he should maybe try to use another of his lady killer smiles to try and calm the girl down. She had been subdued after her near death encounter with the Third Child, and Kaji knew that she had been frightened by it.

He also knew that Asuka didn't react well to being frightened, judging by the increased display of hostility she was unleashing on poor Maya it would be a bit before she managed to calm down.

"Ah, after the assault it was decided to allow the Ikari-kun to carry a weapon," Maya was cringing away from the fury of the German, and Kaji couldn't help but wince. It was going to be much harder to charm answers out of the woman now that she was terrified. So much for a good first impression. "Due to the psychological stress, Doctor Akagi hopes that having some method of defense well help him overcome his trauma."

"Great, the commander's son gets spooked, and now he gets to be a psycho whenever he wants!" Asuka threw her hands up in the air, nearly tossing the report as well. "Thank god for nepotism!"

"It's," Maya cringed again, and this time Kaji couldn't help but feel it was in response to something besides Asuka's temper. "It's really not like that," she mumbled.

"While I can understand a certain change in protocol in response to something like this," Kaji spoke up soothingly, hoping to both calm the atmosphere and change the subject, "I do have to ask at the appropriateness of some of these countermeasures."

Kaji winced, though at the same time Asuka brightened noticeably.

"Due to the chance of further attempts on the pilots' lives, full time personnel have been assigned as bodyguards," Maya droned, sounding as though she was repeating something from memory. "As such, their caretakers are strongly encouraged to spend as much time around their charges as possible, and are given broad latitude in their actions in response to any threats on the pilots."

"Which means we get to live together, Kaji-san!" Asuka cheered, and decided then and there to ease up on the hostility when it came to Maya.

Anyone who gave news as good as that was worth being nice to!

"That makes sense," Kaji agreed, trying to suppress another wince. It looked like the order 'Don't let the Second Child out of your sight' might have been a bit more literal than he had anticipated. "But wouldn't it be more appropriate for guardians of the same gender to take up that kind of role? Like if I were to take up the Third Child and Misato lived with Asuka-chan?"

It made Kaji very uncomfortable to think of having to spend that much time in proximity to an underage girl that had such an obvious crush on him. It was more than just the inconvenience it would cause in his love life, but also how much more difficult it would make some of his more clandestine operations in the future.

Not to mention the way Misato and Shinji had seemed so close. He did not like the implications their body language was giving him.

He had thought better of Misato, and if something really had occurred between the two…

Maya winced, and glanced away. "I'm, sure that the commander has his reasons," she finally declared. Kaji caught that look, and wondered just how close on his guess about the two might be, and just how many other employees of NERV were wondering the same thing.

Asuka snorted, not particularly caring about what might be going on between Misato and Shinji. Those two freaking psychos deserved each other in her book. However, if the commander's son getting some sort of eye candy bodyguard resulted in her having the chance to put the moves on Kaji, than she repeated her earlier statement with a little more sincerity:

'Thank god for nepotism!'

"Um," Maya finally seemed to reach the end of her endurance when it came to both putting up with Asuka and dodging awkward questions. The mousy woman bowed politely as she rose. "Well, I think you have everything now," she awkwardly supplied. "I'll leave you two to settle in at your apartment. There are some things in the control room that I need to attend to."

Kaji decided that he didn't really like that Maya anymore. She had just deliberately left him alone with an amorous Asuka, after all.

"Well, Kaji-san!" the girl chirped happily, latching onto his arm so she could snuggle against it as the two made their way out of NERV. Kaji suppressed a wince, wishing he could escape the grasp without offending the girl. There were already some passersby giving the two disapproving look, and he could have sworn he heard someone mutter 'disgraceful'. "Looks like it's just going to be the two of us now!"

"That's wonderful, Asuka-chan," he told her, masking his distaste for the situation.

"I'll be sure to take good care of you," she cooed. "And I thought you looked really handsome in that suit!" She was somewhat blunt in her praise, but she hoped that by proving she could be supportive of her Kaji-san than she might be able to get his mind of his ex.

"It was a nice suit," Kaji agreed, but now he found his mind wandering to something else.

It had been their eyes, both Misato's and the Third Childs.

Misato's eyes when she pulled the gun on him had been somewhere far away. It was a sight that Kaji was familiar with, one he had grown accustomed too in the hard years after Second Impact. Sometimes bad things happened to people, and even if they lived past them, those things lingered. He saw it before, how something would cause someone to go back to that trauma, how innocent actions could suddenly prompt violent responses.

When Misato had been pulling her gun on him, it hadn't been him she was seeing, hadn't been him she had been aiming at. In her eyes, it was someone else, someone she would kill on sight and without warning.

Shinji too. His eyes, hell, his physical features, they were familiar as well. Kaji had come through Second Impact more or less alright, though many of his friends and companions hadn't. Some had made it, more of those child soldier types, and they had had the same symptoms as the Third Child: stress marks, premature aging, sudden and violent responses to contact.

What the hell had happened here?

Kaji didn't know, but he could guess. That bogus report seemed like a good place to start.

"Well, you'll probably get to wear it again later," Asuka's voice brought Kaji back to the present, reminding him that any investigating he was planning for the future would be far harder than he had anticipated. "After all, I saw someone else wearing a suit earlier, so plenty of people must be wearing them. Just don't let that psycho Misato get to you!"

Kaji gave his charge a reassuring smile, pretending that he really had been worried about the suit and that Asuka's words had been comforting to him. Asuka beamed at him, glad she could have made her Kaji more comfortable as she continued.

"It must have been one of those Section Two guys," she went on. "He looked kind of like a foreigner, and was trying to be all sneaky, standing outside the lobby like that. Honestly, if he wants to act like a spy, he should probably be hiding better, though someone that tall would probably have problems sneaking around…"

*Scene Break*

"Sir," Ritsuko began, unable to completely shake the feeling of unease that had been forming in her. "Is it really wise to let the official report be so widely dispersed?"

Ritsuko glanced down, letting her mind wander back to the report that had been compiled in the aftermath of the incident. She had been waiting diligently by the phone for when the call came, but she had most certainly not expected for Misato to get on the line nearly three hours later, sounding exhausted, announcing the recovery of the Third Child, informing them about the slaughter house which was the Nagasaki Park, and tiredly requesting medical attention for both her and the Third Child.

The aftermath was something straight out of a horror movie in Ritsuko's opinion. By the time the final count came back there had been thirty five corpses, the vast majority of those bodies children but some of them apparently members of the construction crew which had supposedly been renovating the park, and a few of them were just completely random individuals, men or women who had no apparent connection to any of the others.

The Third Child himself had received minimal damage, mostly just torn muscles and ligaments, symptoms usually associated with over exertion. There were friction burns across various places in his body which were consistent with binding marks, no doubt a sign of his captivity. For Misato, the wounding was far more serious, the great wound across her chest requiring extensive surgery and taking nearly two weeks even with NERV's extensive and advanced medical facilities.

And in the aftermath, it had been left to Ritsuko to try and make sense of the debacle.

And had that ever been a task to strain her creativity.

"There are numerous non-government combat forces and mercenaries that sprung up in the after math of the Second Impact," Gendo reminded her cooly, not even bothering to look at her. Instead he focused on the disturbing sight of Rei, floating nude in LCL as she synchronized with the dummy plug system once more. Around and behind them, the innumerable other clones of the girl continued to frolic, the glass muffling any sounds they might be making, but judging from their spread lips and wide smiles they looked like they were laughing. "That one such organization has been operating in Tokyo Three is nothing unusual."

"I'm aware of the number of different mercenary groups," Ritsuko admitted. They tended to be more active in some of the less developed regions of the world, places where they never fully recovered from the chaos of the past. "But to announce their intention to undermine the defense of the world by attacking the Children?"

"Nothing coalesces the wrath of the masses like assaults on the young," Gendo reminded her. "By announcing NERV as their primary target, and their intentions to be terrorist in nature, NERV has even further become a sympathetic figure in the eyes of the people. The goodwill will go a long way to helping support our organization in the future."

Ritsuko sighed, and couldn't help but admire the implacable man in front of her again. In the end, it had been his decision to announce the kidnapping and murders as the result of a terrorist action designed to undermine the planet's defense. It had been sighted that the multiple sightings of foreigners in suits were actually a number of different individuals, all members of this radical institution. And Gendo was right. Despite the danger, more and more public support was being vocalized on the media and over the internet.

"There have been four more requests for transfers," Ritsuko did feel obliged to point out this little concern. "Growing concern over the safety…"

"Refuse the transfers," Gendo cut her off, apparently already aware of the source of the requests. "Offer them the increased 'abroad expense' package instead. If they remain hesitant, they will unexpectedly qualify for the 'special allowance' package as well."

"Very well, sir," Ritsuko nodded. Support might be coming in from the masses, but for those who lived in Tokyo Three, the threat to their family and children were another matter entirely. Many had tried to quit out right, seeking to take their families to safer cities despite the loss of income. In response, Gendo had seen to it that greater allowances were given to families with children so that they could house them in neighboring cities. It wasn't uncommon for teenagers to live alone these days, and for the younger children they were often accompanied by spouses as the bread winner remained in Tokyo Three itself.

Needless to say, many of the neighboring schools had unexpectedly found themselves under new ownership as NERV silently moved to maintain its monopoly on the education system in regards to the Marduk Institute candidates.

So far, it seemed to be working, and though it diverted funding from several less important projects, the increased public support was so far making up for it.

Ritsuko had trouble suppressing a shiver as she looked around the vast underground laboratory, wishing that the synchronization process would hurry up already. Lately this room had made her uncomfortable. No, lately there had been other things which made her uncomfortable.

"Sir," she began again, her unease prompting her to ask even though her voice was slightly unsteady. "And about the UNOFFICIAL report?"

After the incident, both Misato and Shinji had been questioned extensively. Well, that had been the intention. Ritsuko had firmly come to believe that Misato was right about Section Two, because even though they were supposed to be hardened intelligence officers, they had completely been unable to get anything from what should have been a scared little boy. Shinji had clamped up tight, and nothing could get him to talk anymore. Ritsuko was beginning to have a new respect for Misato to have gotten as much as she apparently had out of the unflappable Third Child.

He kind of reminded her of his father in that point.

As for Misato, she had initially been unquestionable due to the necessity of treating her wounds. However, once she woke, she had given a crisp, clear, and concise report of what had occurred in Nagasaki Park.

It had been enough for Ritsuko to nearly recommend an incarceration in a psychiatric facility.

However, as the investigation of the scene had progressed, more and more questions were raised.

There had been nearly a dozen shell casings for the high velocity rounds that Misato had gotten her hands on, for instance, yet not a single bullet was recovered. Those things had enough force to tear through a half dozen engine blocks each, and yet not a single one was discovered despite extensive searching.

Then there was the wounds themselves. Forensic scientists still hadn't been able to identify the weapon used to make them. They lacked any of the characteristics of a scalpel cut, yet were too sharp to have been caused by most knives as well. If anything, the closest conclusion Ritsuko had come to was that they had been caused by some sort of surgical machine, so precise were they. But those kinds of equipment weren't exactly easy to move or conceal, and no sign of any such device had been located.

And then there were the bodies, or more precisely the wrappings that covered the organs that had been stored in the bodies. Despite her best effort, Ritsuko hadn't been able to identify the substance. It looked like saran wrap, or some other type of plastic, but it had been identified as organic. In a fit of frustration Ritsuko had even used the Magi to scan it, hoping that the pattern analysis might give some insight into the material.

She had been expecting a red pattern, a normal biological pattern indicative of earthly creation. She would have been surprised, but able to deal with it as well, if the pattern had come blue, indicating an angelic origin. That would have made a lot more sense of Misato's unbelievable story.

However, the analysis had come back inconclusive. That should be impossible. Even if it was alien in nature, there should have been something in the scan. Instead, nothing. For all the processing power of the three super computers, for all the versatility in identifying alien material, there had been no way to identify the substance

It was all circumstantial in nature. There was no definitive proof as to the existence or nature of the so called 'Slender Man'. But then again, there hadn't been any to substantiate the abuse of the Third Child, and Misato had been dead on with that one.

And so Ritsuko waffled between belief in her friend, and faith in science.

"The unofficial report of Major Katsuragi remains unimportant," Gendo informed her. If he had any doubts about the events of the incident, he didn't voice them. He had recommended the former Captain for promotion though, so who knew what he was thinking at times. "For now, completion of the dummy plug system remains priority."

That was something that Ritsuko could understand at least. If there was an organization of terrorists trying to cause the world to end by destroying the only viable pilots for the earth's defense system, than having an automatic pilot system was even more important than ever.

And if there was something out there, something hunting the pilots for other reasons, the situation was still the same.

Ritsuko suppressed a shiver again, glancing up to confirm that Rei was still in her tube. The girl remained motionless, eyes closed, giving no sign of notice to anything around her as her short blue hair drifted around her head.

It didn't change the fact that it was creepy down here though.

Thoughts of creepy only spurred yet another topic Ritsuko was concerned about.

"Sir," she began one final time. "About the… situation between Major Katsuragi and the Third Child…"

Ritsuko trailed off, not sure what else to say. She had once joked about having the number to child services, and Misato had laughed at her at the idea of her putting the move onto a child. However, that had been before the incident.

Nearly the entire time Misato had been in surgery, Shinji had been waiting patiently outside the door of the operation room, only leaving for the ineffectual attempt at questioning. When she had been moved to a short term convalescence room, so too had Shinji moved.

When Misato had finally recovered enough to return to their apartment, Ritsuko had thought that things might return to normal. However, when Misato had shown up two days later, cleared for light duty, so too had Shinji come. Ritsuko had asked why he wasn't at school, only to be informed by her friend that she had officially withdrawn him.

Ritsuko thought she could understand her friend's actions. Whatever had happened in that Park, it had been something traumatic, something which would leave marks on the two of them's psyches. Ritsuko had thought that maybe the Third Child just wanted to be around the one who had rescued him, that being around Misato would help calm him and prepare him for returning to an eventual everyday life schedule.

However, there was no return. And things hadn't stopped at just Shinji doing home school work in Misato's office. The two of them went everywhere together.

Everywhere.

They ate together, they walked together. When it was time for Misato to have meetings with various personnel, Shinji was always either there with her, or outside the door waiting. He had even taken to helping her carry her supplies, and a few meetings with outside contractors who hadn't known the identity of the Third Child had asked questions at the youth of Misato's apparent office aide. Even when the two were just taking a break down to the coffee or snack machines, regardless of which of them the snack was for they both went.

That alone wouldn't have been enough for Ritsuko to worry, but when Misato had started escorting Shinji even to the locker room for when he changed into his plug suit, and Ritsuko realized that she wasn't waiting outside the door, that was when she had begun to worry. Misato would leave synchronization exercises early as well, so she could greet her charge the moment he left the Eva.

Ritsuko knew Misato, after all. She could make some guesses as to what her own reaction to the incident must have been like. Misato liked to have a little physical assurance after a life or death situation, and Ritsuko didn't want to know how she could have a one night stand when she seemed physically incapable of being outside of the Third's presence.

Well, she could think of a few ways that Misato might find comfort even with Shinji around, and that was what was disturbing her.

He was so young! Ritsuko did not think of how hypocritical her thoughts were, considering that the age difference between Shinji and Misato was nearly identical to the age difference between Ritsuko and Gendo.

"The personal interactions between the Major and the Third Child are of little concern," Gendo dismissed, once more showing any lack of concern for the emotional safety of his own child. "So long as their relationship does not interfere with either of their duties, than NERV will make no effort to impede upon their privacy."

For a moment, Ritsuko actually wondered if this was yet another example of the strange and twisted caring that the man sometimes seemed to display around his son. Just like when he had deliberately set Misato on the path to guard him, was this another of his ways to look after Shinji, despite its apparent callousness? The boy did not seem upset with Misato's constant presence. If anything , he seemed relieved by it, accepting and even visibly enjoying being around her at times. Was Gendo's insistent hands-off approach to their strange relationship his own way of allowing his son to find some comfort in his life?

"In the future," Gendo continued in a diffident tone, "threats to their relationship will prove more effective in keeping both individuals compliant."

And just like that, any thought of Gendo secretly caring about his son died.

"I… I'll just go see to the irregularities in the dummy plug," Ritsuko stammered out, feeling cold at the absolute ruthlessness that her lover was displaying. As she turned, she thought that Gendo would let her go without speaking.

"Doctor Akagi," Gendo disabused that notion too, and Ritsuko hesitated. "You will come to my apartment tonight."

Despite herself, Ritsuko sighed in relief. Even if he was ruthless and terrifying, even if she was beginning to question her own mental state for being so attracted to him, she was still glad that she would be spending the night with him.

In the last few weeks, with all that was going on, Ritsuko was beginning to become frightened of sleeping alone.

As the scientist departed, leaving Gendo alone in the company of Fuyutsuki, the two men stood silently, both of them gazing without words at the still form of Rei as she floated. Both of them couldn't help but see the features of the one woman they both loved, the one they yearned for even all these years after she had been taken from them.

"And if it isn't human or angel?" Fuyutsuki was finally the one who broke the silence. The two of them were familiar with each other, a camaraderie that had developed over years of working together. Gendo didn't need to ask his old mentor to elaborate further.

"The existence of other non-human entities besides the angels does not bear any significance on the scenario," the commander of NERV stated plainly. "The scenario will be completed, regardless of any obstacles."

In response Fuyutsuki gave his paternal smile, accepting Gendo's decision. If Ritsuko had seen it, she would have been struck by the fact that for all his gentle and grandfatherly airs, Fuyutsuki could be every bit as ruthless and terrifying as Gendo could be.

*Scene Break*

Rei Ayanami the third watched. She did so without moving, without opening her eyes. Even as Ritsuko moved behind and around her while Gendo and Fuyutsuki stayed in front of her, she still watched all three of them.

She didn't remember how she had learned to do so. But even though she shouldn't be able to see anyone right now, she was still watching them.

The fact that she couldn't remember how to do something like that did not disturb her.

Even if she had many bodies, it was still her soul which was transferred when one of her clones were terminated. And the soul didn't remember, not like the body did. Every time she transferred, she was reborn into the world, innocent and ignorant. That was the true purpose of her synchronization, after all, to transfer the memories of her past to the new and unprepared body.

But even if she had to seek outside assistance to recover her basic knowledge, there were some parts of her that did transfer automatically. The soul didn't have memories, but it did have impulses, instincts, collections of hazy recollections which had been marked far deeper than just the neutrons and cells of her brain.

And now, one of those instincts was to watch.

Rei Ayanami wasn't certain how she had learned that instinct. The memories she had received after coming into existence in her third incarnation didn't have the knowledge of that. The memories had come from directly before the confrontation with the fifth angel, and her termination had come before she could update her external record of her past.

And so Rei wasn't certain where the instinct to watch had come from. Nor the other instincts she had discovered that were different from what she remembered having before her second death.

Rei was watching the three around her, but they weren't the ones who she felt the desire to watch. There was one, one in particular, that she found herself drawn to.

Pilot Ikari.

She watched him whenever she was in his presence. Without looking, without gazing, she watched. She found that even when she tried, she couldn't stop watching him.

His eyes.

There had been something about his eyes, something she had learned and lost, something which had stayed with her, which teased her with half recalled recollections. She had discovered something about his eyes, and now that she did not have that something anymore, it left a small, hollow and constant aching inside of her.

She wanted to remember. Rei very rarely felt things like wanting or loss, and so now that she felt them there was always some part of her thinking on it.

And so she watched Pilot Ikari, waiting and hoping for the chance to find what had been taken from her.

And there was one other thing that stayed, something she had forgotten.

It had been a game. A marvelous game. One she had played before.

What had the game been? Just like Pilot Ikari's eyes had begun manifesting in her dreams, despite the fact that she had never really had dreams before, so too the game had been making appearances as well.

She could almost recall how to play it…

And so, Rei watched. And as Rei watched, the dummy plug echoing her thoughts, the game finding root through synchronization in the programming which would someday be the dummy plug, somewhere, in the darker parts of the mass holding facility of her clones, several of the giggling swimmers stilled.

And hidden, behind the mass of innocence that were the rest of those clones, concealed in the dark recesses of the vast aquarium like structure, the still ones floated, also watching.

*Scene Break*

In the dark of their apartment, Misato and Shinji slept. Once, Misato had jokingly thought to herself that without their bed clothes their position would have been best described as 'raunchy as hell'.

Sleepily, contentedly, Misato pulled Shinji closer, feeling smug that she had been right in her prediction.

It had taken her time to recover after they had escaped, after they had fought their way free of Nagasaki Park, but when the two of them finally were alone together back in their homeMisato had followed through with her promise to teach Shinji how adults kiss. And then the topic had moved on to more advanced lessons of what adults did.

She had been even thrilled when her Shinji had proven to be an apt student on the topic.

Misato knew that people were beginning to talk. She knew that there were whispers from her coworkers behind their backs, that some were beginning to give her disgusted or disappointed looks at what must seem like a completely inappropriate relationship to them.

Well, screw those guys.

Misato knew she was damaged. She had been damaged before, after all, and she had done enough self-introspection to recognize what she was. The thick red scar, flowing down over her older and faded one was yet again a symbol that there was something wrong with her, that something inside her was either broken, or twisted, or just out of alignment.

She was fine with that. She would recover, in time. Just like the first time she had been wounded, she would get better, bit by bit. In time she wouldn't find herself drawing her gun on innocent strangers who had startled her, wouldn't find herself biting her lip when she caught sight of some innocent object out of the corner of her eye that just happened to resemble a human silhouette. She wouldn't wake up shaking, crushing the body next to her to her chest so tightly that she worried she might hurt him.

It would take time, but it would happen.

She also knew that Shinji too, was damaged. That was okay as well. This was his first time that way, though it had been a far longer and more exhausting wound than hers had been. But he too would get better. He was already looking up more and more, already capable of giving her those shy smiles and blushes as he met her eyes, or managed to take in the sight of something other than the ground around him. And the times when he would thrash in her arms due to nightmares were already diminishing, maybe in part due to the soothing caresses and whispers she would give him when he did so.

So yeah, the two of them were damaged. And yeah, they had sought refuge in the arms of the only other person in the world who could understand that damage.

Misato honestly couldn't think of anyone else she would want to be with, regardless of the circumstances behind their relationship. Even the sight of her old boyfriend earlier that day hadn't been able to shake her new lover, and wasn't that a giddy though, her Shinji being her lover, for the determined young man who had managed to stand up to impossible odds alone for so long.

And Shinji, Shinji too couldn't imagine being with anyone other than the impossible, teasing, observant, and strong woman who had stood up for him, who had tried to help him, and in their darkest moment had tried to die for him.

And so the two of them slept together, naked except for the thin sheet that barely reached up to their waists.

Well, Misato did have to suppress a giggle. Maybe the size difference was a bit awkward right now. Her Shinji did barely come up to her chest at the moment, though he would no doubt grow. In Japan, pressing your face against a lover's chest was sometimes called 'Spoiled Child', and Shinji was getting very spoiled in the last few days.

He didn't seem to mind though. And honestly, Misato thought he deserved to be spoiled a bit.

Late that night, even though she was deep asleep when the change came, the moment it happened, the moment Shinji stiffened in her arms her eyes snapped open.

She still didn't know how he knew. Whatever it was that was giving it away to him she never asked, but her Shinji always knew.

Misato didn't look behind her, towards the door to her bedroom. She didn't see the way it had been cracked open by a few inches, despite the fact that she had closed it and locked it tight before they had gone to bed. She didn't look at the too white eyeless face set off a dark suit and white shirt as the Slender Man stood, watching, waiting.

Instead, she looked down at her lover, and found Shinji looking back up at her to meet her eyes.

At his back, the gun she slept with clutched firmly in her hand at all times clicked as she released the safety on it. It had a full clip with a bullet chamber. Beneath their pillows were five more clips, all filled with the same high velocity ammo she had come to favor.

And at her back, clenched just as firmly as her gun, another click as the box cutter Shinji always had with him extended echoed her own preparation.

"Try it," Misato told the thing.

Maybe the Slender Man could understand her words, and held back because of them. Maybe it simply hadn't intended to attack at all this time.

Maybe it was just waiting for them to look at it, rather than just each other.

However, for now, the Slender Man just remained at the doorway, its head cocked to the side as it watched without eyes, and Misato and Shinji looked at nothing but each other.

And so the three of them remained, long into the night.

_This is not the end._

_It will never end._

_But it is the conclusion._


End file.
